#99 Design Wall Monday and talented family

I have read enough blogs to realize that mine is a bit pedestrian. Alas my reason for blogging is to leave a legacy to my kids and hopefully spur their creative juices! I thought I would show you what's on the design wall this week and introduce you a bit to my family.

Here is what I am working on this week and hope to finish by the weekend!

I have yet to add two more borders and then get to quilting!

So, on to the family...

My Oldest is a wonderful scrapbooker -- when she can! She's dabbled as well with pottery and I have been blessed with some of her creations! One of them sits in my sewing room to hold all my scissors and marking pens, etc. She is a single mom, full time student and employee extraordinaire! I am very proud of her! Her "ex" decided he didn't want to be a parent and gave her the choice of either him or:

I am so proud of her. She is a great mommy and recently graduated from her second program while juggling parenthood, studies and a job! I know the Little Man has encouraged her to excellence! I'm not only blessed by a wonderful daughter, but a terrific grandson as well! He by the way is the family cat tamer and tent blanket developer.

My Middle aka Motorcycle Man is talented with marketing, advertising as well as a cross-country racing (motorcycles)! I have suffered more than one mini-mock heart attack with him, but I am so impressed that he does what he does. He's a talented photographer, videographer as well as designing posters, websites, etc. (and no he didn't design mine...) He has been published too many times to count and does it all because he loves the motorcycles sports.

One of Motorcycle Man's websites he works on is http://secondgearclub.com/ . Check it out. He's also in the upcoming "On Any Sunday" documentary with his ice racing that will come to a theatre near you in the Fall of 2014.  

The Youngest of course is a quilter herself. Much different than me though. She gets a project in her head and will sew into the wee hours until it's DONE! Usually she will start a project on a Friday here at my place and sew until Sunday night! You've seen some of her works on my blog! In high school she was a talented seamstress, though has not done that for a while. She's more into her quilting and is also a decorating diva! She can make any house into a show home!

Chef, is just that. A wonderful Chef who is a talented butcher, cheese maker, winemaker, etc. He's a retired culinary arts instructor as well as his career with being an executive chef. He feeds me, tries new recipes on me and is my best friend (best friend being the first in the list!). He is my adventurous  travel and fishing partner!

Chef also has two sons who are both great outdoors men. Give them a mountain, ice cave, summit, sheer rock, you name it - they will take it on! That in itself is another talent! The photo's they bring us from their adventures amaze us! Both boys are following in their dad's footsteps with culinary arts in their spare time!

So... in a nutshell, I am blessed and wish them, and you all a wonderful creative journey! They say you need to exercise your creative part of your brain in order to function at your full capacity! Keep doing something... be it woodworking, needlepoint, cooking ... whatever you have passion for! Whatever you choose, do it because it makes you happy and your heart sing!

For me....I'm on to happy Quilting!

Margo

Quilting Design Board

Well I finally did it! I re-did the design wall in my studio (with the help from Chef). I wanted it inexpensive and functional. I read other blogs, tossed the idea of what colour (grey? white?) or do I use quilt batting(more cost). What if it turns out like crap and I've wasted all that money? Off to Rona (Canada's Lowe's or Home Depot, Home Hardware) and checked out the board that I could put it on. I read people saying that blue styrofoam, but at $27.00 a sheet for a project that wasn't guaranteed to work, I was hesitant on outlaying that cash. Besides, the more I can save from this project the more I have for fabric! I settled on two sheets of 4' x 8', 2" styrofoam board.

The next question is, "How do I want it on the wall?" Do I want it up and down with the length from the ceiling to the floor? If I do that I have to consider a wall plug as well as the width of the baseboards. Also, will I really be getting down on my hands and knees to put designs on the bottom? I have a hard enough time getting up and down from the floor playing cars with the little man. How do I want to position it? The other question is how much of the wall do I want to cover? I ended up deciding that I want the boards to get lenthwise from left to right, starting at the top of the ceiling and down to the top of the wall plug, meaning there would be about 15" from the floor to the bottom of the design wall (which suits me just fine!) It's a little higher than Tigger is willing to stretch to scratch it all to heck! How DO you cut styrofoam without it chipping? I heard years ago that the best way to cut styrofoam is with an electric knife. I have no electric knife, but I do have one with a similar blade! Of course my quilting rulers came in real handy! I cut a foot off the width of each of the boards (also in mind to fit the fabric that I had planned on using....though that in itself was a math dilemna for me! ha ha)The knife cut through it like butter with only a few minor chinks out of the styrofoam on the bottom edge. That edge of course I could put to the wall side.

Next was the challenge of fitting the fabric on. Do I want to staple it or just tape it? Tape here we come. Chef found some "tuck tape" that is a little lighter than duct tape and just as easy to attach as duct tape. It held the fabric easily and there was minimal glue residue on the edges (I find duct tape has some of the gluey bits sit on the edges of the tape). Between the two of us, we managed to stretch the green flannel (yep the whole room is green, so I thought rather than have it stick out, I wanted it to blend in with the walls a bit more).

I read different methods of affixing the boards to the wall. I decided to choose the "Command" glue strips. I heard a lot of success stories and I liked the idea that I wouldn't be plugging the walls with more holes. I wanted it smooth on the front and the idea of having an electric screwdriver going through the fabric kind of put me on edge! The result was a fantastic finish! The people who used command strips said that it didn't fall off the wall. I made sure that I affixed a lot. The ones I bought each individually held 16 pounds. I put four across the top, then four across the middle and four across the bottom. There is a "bit" of a gap with the both of them together (you'll see it closer to the right corner of the wall). Nothing that was too horrid.

My total investment was $40. ($10 each for two styrofoam boards, flannel fabric, roll os tuck tape and command strip refills). Those of you in the U.S. would probably get it even cheaper yet! Not bad for a design board. The size that I have is 8' across by 6' from the ceiling to the bottom of the wall. Enough for me! Good luck on your design wall! Happy Quilting!