Neighborhood under construction

There are two exciting things about this picture...to me, anyway.

First, I finished the house quilt blocks (plus a few rejects) and will soon move on to assembly.

Second, this marks the inaugural use of my new portable design wall. As you probably noticed from previous posts, the wall in my sewing room is really a partial wall, so that bits of whatever project is in progress end up hanging over my work files. Last October at a booth at PIQF, I stood and marveled at the cleverness of this free-standing, collapsible and portable design wall. I liked the idea of it, and thought the use of those elasticized tent pole type things was great for this concept... but I wasn't sure how often I'd use it and it wasn't exactly inexpensive. So, I walked away without making a purchase.

Several days later when I showed up at the Bishop's Ranch quilt retreat, I was amused to find that some my quilting buddies had sprung for the portable design wall. We shared a lot of laughter as we watched the assembly process (all those sproingy elastic poles, you know) but it was easy to see how useful the darn things were. All of us who'd admired them at PIQF started talking and one thing led to another... resulting in a group order purchased for us by another buddy at the Houston quilt festival.

I only received this the other day (as it was passed from quilter friend to quilter friend to complete the delivery) and realized it'd be perfect for finalizing my schoolhouse block layout. Assembly was easy. And voila! I can see all of my blocks. And the cats will be entertained by this new structure in the bedroom.

I'm feeling rather pleased with myself. You can find out more about these design walls (and order your own) here.