An Exciting Weekend

I finally accomplished the one thing I've been wanting for years and years.  A design wall!

It ended up being 96" wide and 80" tall.

It was interesting to get it up, and for a while yesterday I was about to throw in the towel.  My handyman, Peter, had no clue why I wanted to cover perfectly good insulation boards with "material" and hang it on the wall.  It wasn't until we were done and I grabbed a block out of a UFO tub and stuck it up there that he finally "got it"!

A month ago I ordered a bolt of flannel from Jo-Ann's for about $2.50 a yard.  Although the sku's matched, the color was totally different than it looked online.  Then after buying the insulation board last weekend, I realized that I'd have to piece the flannel to cover it.  Peter was carefully watching me measure, and about passed out when I ripped the length of that fabric instead of cutting it.  (I love to watch the reaction of folks when I do that!)  When I was stretching the fabric over the board and duct taping it to the back, I couldn't get those two seams to keep from wrinkling a bit.  Oh, well, as my Dad used to say often to me, "Bebe, we aren't building a piano here."  Then I decided to Velcro it to the wall after pondering for a month on how to attach it.  Silly me didn't want to screw it in because I wanted to be able to easily take it down and change the flannel when I needed to.  I tell you, screws would have been easier to deal with than trying to pull the board away from the wall with two-inch Velcro holding it firm!  But, you know, it's up - it's done - and I'm a happy camper.

Oh, a couple of other things that totally blew Peter's mind ... and made me laugh out loud.  1)  When he said he wished he had brought his square, I opened a drawer full of rulers.  2)  He handed me the scissors to cut the fabric from the bolt and I whipped out the rotary cutter.  3)  I made that cut directly on the top of the cutting table and he tried to stop me because I was going to cut the surface, which precipitated a lesson on cutting mats.  4)  The Osilio iron that raised itself up when I let go of it.  5)  That me, a girl, truly understood measuring and drawing straight lines and getting things to match.  At the end of the day when he was once again expressing his amazement at all the tools I had in my sewing room, I couldn't help but think of my late boss' favorite phrase ... "Stick with me, kid!"

So it seems I'm all ready to get back into quilting and get those blocks all sewn together that I've been making but not assembling.  No more excuses!

I guess everyone has seen the news about all the bad weather we've had down here.  I think the worst of it passed slightly north of my little town, but there was still plenty of rain and very high winds.  Thursday night about 1:15 I woke up and actually got scared.  The wind was blowing so hard that the shutters were banging and this big old house felt like it was moving and swaying.  I put Penny in her little travel kennel and stuck her in the little downstairs bathroom tucked under the staircase, and I sat holding a flashlight until it was time to get dressed to go to work.  There were several times during that period that I was sure any minute the house would blow down. The fact that it's been sitting here since 1927 and has been through hurricanes and things a lot worse than that storm didn't even enter my mind at that point.  But all's well - and thank you to all of you who were worried and emailed or called me.