New Design Wall/Re-Discovered House Blocks!

Now, at long last I have a design wall put up, after over a year living in our new house which has a quilting/crafting room that, while anything but huge, gives me more room and more storage than did my quilting space in our old house.  I had such a wall in the other house, a fairly nice-sized one, which was actually an old cork bulletin board that I covered in batting.  But this new room was deliberately designed with a blank wall that was wider and much higher (natch, since our ceiling are 10' rather than 8') than the old one.  But it is only this weekend that I got around to putting up a design wall.  I used two 6'x8' insulation foam boards, with 4' cut off each.  Husband Bob nailed them to the wall with some very sturdy long nails, and we lucked out in actually locating some studs into which to nail some of them.  We put one foam board on top of the other, with the 6' lengths parallel to the floor and thus the two 4' sides making the design board 8' tall.  It is about 17" off the floor, allowing room beneath for an electrical outlet.  Too, I had learned with my former design wall that if it is too close to the floor, it is difficult to pin anything very low on the board.  Today after church we stopped by Jo Ann's for me to purchase 6 yards of pale yellow--really cream-colored--flannel.  I cut this in half and then pinned the two lengths along the top, sides, and bottom of the foam boards.  I used the sturdy yellow-headed # 28 pins that QA quilt teacher Cara Gulati recommended for the pinning of our scroll quilts to their backgrounds.  I used tiny dressmaker pins to secure the flannel where the two pieces overlap.  I love my new board and now can hardly wait to get my scroll quilt pinned up on it!

While straightening up my quilting room, I discovered a box where I had three house blocks stored.  These I made about a year and a half ago, when friend Linda tried valiantly to get me to be a journal quilting buddy with her.  But at the time I was so obsessed with the building of this new house, that all I could think of each week was "house, house, house."  I think Linda got frustrated with me for making these with the same theme each time, and felt that I was missing the point of journal quilting!  After just a few weeks, I dropped the project.  Now, however, I find that they are exactly the same size as the journal quilt I made a few weeks ago in honor of the time spent during Spring Break with my little Michigan grandsons--the baseball-themed journal quilt.  So why not go back to calling these house blocks journal quilts, too?  I have these four pinned way up at the top of my design board now.  Surely it will be a rare day that I use every square inch of this board, particularly that very highest section!  I'll keep these pinned up as I make them periodically and as I await deciding if I want eventually to sew them all together into a quilt to decorate this space.  Or just leave them as is, as does Linda.