New and improved design wall...WAY overdue...

Well, the second college tour trip of the year is over...another 2000 miles on the car and the future still uncertain.  It is a good thing Riley is a junior...we have about 6 months before the application deadlines start emerging.

I finally got fed up with my old design wall.  Before our college trip, I picked the windiest day of the week and took off to Lowe's to buy two 4' x 8' sheets of insulating foam board.  

The price?  $12.50 a sheet.  The stupid, wacky drive home with a virtual kite/sail poorly strapped to to top of my Subaru Forester? PRICELESS!  

I'm surprised I wasn't pulled over and arrested for stupidity, really.

It's a good thing my car has a sunroof...toward the end I had my arm through the roof, holding onto the front edge of the foam sheets.  It was a little nuts trying to change gears (of course having a 5-speed manual transmission made this all even more absurd...).

I used my 50% off one cut coupon at Joann's to buy some wide oatmeal-colored felt.  Then I used my Mod Podge and a wide craft brush to "paint" the back edge of each foam board.  I stretched the felt to the backside and stuck pins in to hold things until the glue dried.  Voila!

I had to use my electric foam craft cutter to melt/slice one of the pieces that was too wide before gluing.  I also had to make a little cut for the bottom corner of the steps...I wanted the area as wide as possible.

Here is the first, slender panel in place over the poured basement wall.  I just used a level to make sure it was plum and tacked it into place.  Then I prepared the second, full sheet and got it into place right up against the first piece.  

There is a seam between the two covered panels, but I don't care. It is such an improvement over the (formerly) hot pink thermal blanket from college, received 35 years ago before entering Auburn University in the fall of 1978.

This is what my design wall USED to look like...a very tacky color peeking through my projects in progress.  I'm not even a pink person...I think the thermal blanket was a gift from someone for high school graduation.

I like the foam board and the ability to just poke pins in the thing, just like a bulletin board.

The beauty of having so many projects in progress makes it possible to hop, skip and jump around when momentarily stumped by the design progress. 

I am slightly stumped by the outer borders of the "Belles and Blossoms" project, so I designed an outer border for Lori Smith's "Songs of Spring"  6-inch blocks I had finished hand appliqueing.  I have the finished wall hanging basted and, now, mostly hand quilted.  I will show it soon!

Guess what we got on tax day...MORE SNOW!  My poor, late, shivering daffodils, who finally had the courage to stick their heads up last week...

Even though it was below freezing, the roads, driveways and sidewalks retained enough warmth to melt the snow.  Good riddance, polar vortex and the long hard winter of 2013-14!  The snow shovels were already up in the attic!

Wacky, wacky, but I did hear that the 2 inches or so was enough to push Detroit and our area into the record books for the snowiest winter ever recorded.  Then, Wednesday night the low temp of 16 degrees set a new record as well.

I shouldn't complain...other places in the Midwest received a lot more snow than that this week.  Weasley took the snow as a sign that his winter hibernation should be extended a little longer...

I hope you are getting some spring where you are (or maybe some fall colors "down under").

In stitches,
Teresa   :o)