Lovely to meet you, Kay!

Thank you, Kae, for graciously allowing us to intrude upon your solitude this afternoon and giving me a tour of your studio and home and quilts. Such fun! Such loveliness!!

My verbal description of my design wall didn't even begin to convey what was in my mind's eye, and rather than try to match up a bunch of attached pictures to a narrative in an email, I figured this would be easiest.

My design wall, in a room with a 10' ceiling.

I started by installing a window shade (52-54") as close to the ceiling as I could get and still be able to manipulate tools. I never claim to be perfect, as evidenced by the first set of screw holes.

Once I was satisfied with the tension of the shade and roller, to the base of the shade I hot-glued a sheet of flannel-backed vinyl picnic-table fabric. (I've had to reglue this every couple of years or so.) Obviously, you can pull the shade down and glue at a comfortable level!

As I roll the design wall up, I never roll it past the wooden base.

I've found that the more squares and fabric I load up on the design wall, the heavier it gets and thus starts to "droop" and roll the shade down. I fixed that (I hope--this is a new tweak) by adding some magnets at the side. I can't make any suggestions as to where to find these, as they were bits 'n' bobs scavenged from deconstruction projects. Even a metal plate screwed to the wall would work; all the top magnet needs is something to stick to. I may end up installing a second set of magnets or plates (depending on what flotsam and jetsam I find around here) higher up on the wall, depending on how much "sag" these lower magnets help alleviate.

Bottom magnet with handy hole already drilled in the center.

When working with this, I pull the top of the flannel down to a comfortable reach, then roll it up as I progressively fill the sheet. Pins here and there help keep things from rolling off as the shade is raised and lowered.

At the moment I'm working on a donation quilt, and trying to expand my idea of what "neutral" is in the border treatment. (The top and bottom sections--seen in the top photo--still need to be cut back to 2".) The border shows the "comfortable chambrey" effect I was telling you about, when combining all the "is this really neutral?" fabrics. I just now, when viewing this photo, noticed the double zig-zag effect going on--cool! I placed the same periwinkle strip of fabric in the middle of the neutral triangles, which is what's contributing to that effect.

Here are some of the neutrals that you wouldn't think would really work (especially that dark tan), and yet they do!

I think you can see a link to "Quiltville" in my sidebar. Bonnie's got a wealth of information on her site! Her article on "Neutrals" (under "Tips & Techniques!") is eye-opening, to say the least.

I'm so glad to have met you Kae, and hope to meet your sisters some day soon!