Category: Batiks

It was a ridiculously meeting-heavy day at work today so I was stuck at the desk in my dining room all day long. I did get out to toss the ball for my boys a couple of times, and then right back to the grind.

After dinner we took our evening three-mile walk and ended it with a glorious sunset.

I was pretty tired after my work day so I lounged on the sofa for about an hour and then decided to hit my sewing room to get a little bit done before I fall asleep on the sofa.

I took my sunburst jumble quilt off my retractible design wall, measured it and wrote it all down clearly so I know how big to make the backing.

Then I folded it up with it’s backing and put it in my pile of quilts that need backings to be made.

With that done, I sorted my Wensleydale blocks by value and started putting them up on my design wall.

The thing I love most about my retractible design wall is that I can raise it up to do the lowest blocks so I don’t have to break my back to do the bottom rows.

And then I just lower it to do the higher rows.

Here’s the 50 blocks I have done up on this design wall.

I’m really glad I did this before I made the final ten blocks I need to complete this top. My plan was to make ten dark blocks. But after seeing these blocks all up, I decided that I need five dark and five more white blocks.

I’m really loving this quilt! It’s fun to see it all up on the big design wall. This isn’t the final lay out. I’ll have to agonize over that for several days before I throw my hands up and say, “To hell with it… it’s good enough!”.

Several people have asked me about my design wall, so I decided to write a little about it again.

My friend bought this retractible design wall for me at a quilt show many years ago and had it shipped to me from California. I don’t remember the name of the maker, but I’m pretty sure they’re not making these any more.

It has two separate design walls that roll up into the wooden box that hangs on the wall over the closet doors in my sewing room. So I can use both roll-up walls at the same time. The fabric is a heavy flannel with a plastic backing. You can just roll one up, blocks and all, and then roll it down again. Well, that’s the theory. I never do that because it sort of makes a mess out of your blocks! But I could have left my finished quilt top on the back wall and used the front one for these Wensleydale blocks.

Here’s a video that shows how the walls roll up.

My sewing room is a pretty small room. So the best thing about this design wall is that it hangs over the closet and just rolls up out of the way when I’m not using it. I don’t have a wall that I could dedicate to a design wall.

Each wall is big enough to accommodate a generous throw size quilt. But not large enough for a queen quilt. So to accommodate a queen size quilt I made my portable design wall. This blog post shows how I made that and how I use it in combo with my retractible design wall.

Poor Rico has has some stomach issues the last couple days. He wouldn’t eat yesterday morning and had no interest in his dinner either. He as a bit of a sensitive stomach so I always have ground turkey in my freezer and rice and canned pumpkin in my pantry. The ground turkey and rice make a bland meal that’s good for bad tummies, and the pumpkin helps firm up loose poops.

So after our walk last night I dug some turkey out of the freezer and browned it up. I also cooked a big pan of brown rice. I was happy to see that Rico was VERY interested in a few pieces of turkey once it was cooked. I didn’t give him a full meal last night because I didn’t want to be up in the middle of the night with an emergency run outside.

He was very happy to eat his breakfast and lick the bowl clean this morning. And, his poops look a lot better this evening.

He’s a little horrified that I’m telling you about his poop. He thinks that’s a private topic.

Bender, on the other hand, will eat literally anything.

What a happy damned dog.