Design Wall + Plus

A few days ago, my friend V sent me this link to a video about Free-motion quilting. As part of the preparation it mentions using a spray adhesive to baste the quilt sandwich together--no surprises there. I've used spray basting before, and didn't love it. The surprise came when I realised the basting was being done on a wall. I was intrigued. When I saw how easy it looked in the video, I went beyond intrigued. To understand the attraction, you have to know that quilts are traditionally basted on a horizontal surface. And the surface needs to be at least as big as the quilt. The trouble with horizontal surfaces at my place is that they have a strong tendency to acquire a layer or three of stuff--useful, necessary and unrelenting stuff. What's more, a standard bed quilt--even a single--is wider than my large table. And basting on a horizontal surface involves lots of awkward bending and reaching. When I watched the follow-up video, my excitement turned to disappointment. I realised that this technique requires, not just a dedicated wall, but one covered in a substance that will easily hold pins--and strong enough to carry the entire weight of the quilt. The tutor on the video used a wall covered in foam ceiling tiles. I wasn't about to recover a large piece of wall in ceiling tiles just to see if the idea would work.

I put the idea aside and went on with my plans to visit the large table at the Neighbourhood House whenever I need to baste a quilt. But while I was getting on with something else, my brain started making connections, until . . . ah ha! A solution came to mind:

• I've long liked the idea of having a design wall--a space to pin up fabric and quilt blocks while deciding about arrangement, colour balance etc. Sometimes I've pinned a large sheet over an area of my living room wall--temporary, but effective.
• Quite a while ago I acquired a large quantity of white cotton drill fabric, I'd never got around to using it--so it became part of the clutter in my sewing room;
• If I could make a stable enough surface out of my white drill fabric I could have a design wall and a basting wall all in one.
• Two rod pockets, a curtain rod and hooks to hold the fabric at the top and a 2 metre length of timber to weigh down the bottom had me nearly there.
• My rod-pocket curtain idea made a good design wall. To stabilise it enough to use for quilt basting, I used drawing pins to attach the edges of the fabric directly to the plaster wall.

Here it is on a trial run with one of the baby bunny rugs I mentioned in an earlier post:

So far, so good! My design/basting wall is just about 2 metres wide and 2.3 metres high--I've never made a quilt bigger than that and I could push out the width a bit more if needs be. The "spray basting on a wall" technique seems to be as easy and effective as it looks in the video. I was worried that the tutor's competence in this reflected years of skill development--I'm sure her free-motion quilting does, but the basting part is just easy. I don't think I'll miss that particular patch of wall in my living room--I only had to move one small quilt to make room for it. I think I'm onto a good thing. I now have two baby rugs ready for binding and a smile on my face. Oh, and I forgot to mention, I already had all the necessary hardware in the house!