Time to Earn My Keep.............

......... by actually posting something useful on my blog. From time to time, I share my directions for constructing a little portable design wall. Eileen emailed to see if I could provide a picture of my creation, so I decided to add it to my blog, and I won't have to keep eternally typing it everytime the topic presents itself. I don't think the whole idea came from ME, but this is actually my version of the little set-up. The thing I like about this little "wall" is that I can roll it around, and use it next to a printing table to pin up printed fabric to dry, or bring it alongside my cutting board to assemble a fiber piece - it can go almost wherever I go - at least on the second floor. It has not yet mastered the stairs.

Here are the picures for the "wall", side view[upper] front view [lower]

And now the directions:

Materials needed:
1 rolling clothes rack (Wal-mart, $12-ish)
2 sheets of pink foam insulation 4'X8', 1.5" to 2" thick
Enough flannel to cover the sheets of foam on one side, wrapping to back side
Pins or Tape

My flannel came from Wal-Mart as well [I was already in the store, after all!] - 60" width buy enough to cover your foam.

Decide how tall you'd like your "wall" to be - take into account the ceilings it will encounter, as well as any doorways you will want to roll in and out of easily. Other things can be taken into consideration, also. You can see that my "walls" are only 5' high, and I could have had another 8-10" and still get through my doorway. BUT If I'd left that extra foot or so on the "wall", I couldn't have used the resluting 3'X4" pieces of foam for a couple of nifty print table surfaces, so I made my choice (besides, I have a full 8 ft design wall right in my sewing room).

And I digress..... so back to the instructions. Lay one of your flannel pieces on the floor and put the foam on top. OR lay the foam on the floor and put the flannel on top. Either way, get those two together. Smooth the flannel over the foam surface, then pull the edge of the flannel around to the back and pin it into the foam (or tape will work ok, too - I used pins. Pin it all around, and then do the same thing with the other piece of foam and piece of flannel.

Assemble the clothes rack - basically just a snap-together job. Set one flannel/foam board on one side of that little castor base and one on the other side, flannels facing out. You may be done at this point, if you feel happy with how they hug the rack. OR you can provide a little extra security by taking a couple of small strips of fabric and pinning one side of each into each pieces of foam at the top, to keep them from tipping forward. It's up to you - if you aren't going to be doing coat rack races with your rig, you may not need the fabric strips. I have them on mine, just in case.

That's the whole recipe. When I covered my boards, I used black for one side and white for the other. You could use acrylic felt also, probably, or quilt batting - whatever works for you. And now, what works for ME is to go find something to get rid of these *!#@! hiccups!!! It's hard to type anything sensible with my head bobbing every 5 seconds!