The 2025 Two Bucks a Block quilt will be my first completed project in 2026. This Thangles Block of the Month came from Back Door Quilts, our local quilt shop. Since I’m a fan of quilts big enough to double as portable forts, I decided to make two identical blocks each month and work up my own layout. Here’s a New Year’s Day snapshot of the quilt on my shiny new design wall, which we’ll chat about shortly.
The picture below was taken on January 23, and the quilt is still on the frame and a little farther along than in this photo. I had high hopes of finishing it in January, but I once again underestimated my quilty speed and my SQUIRREL quilting style. Oh well, if I keep setting goals, one day I might actually surprise myself and meet one. HA!
Okay let's have that little chat about the new design wall. This room has seen many different design walls over the years and I'm pretty sure this won't be the last. The grand plan for this design wall was to go as simple and big as possible. By the way we installed the new drop ceiling tiles and fan the last week of December.
On New Year’s Day morning, armed with three yards of 108" wide white flannel from Hobby Lobby (naturally snagged on sale) and a trusty staple gun the design wall project began!
I didn’t prep the wall or draw any lines to ensure the fabric would hang perfectly straight, but I did make sure to square up the sides of the fabric. I folded the top edge of the fabric under by about half an inch, gave it a staple, then scooted over about three inches, folded again, and stapled...rinse and repeat until the top was secured in place. As you can see, it wasn’t looking great with only the top edge stapled to the wall. At this point it crossed my mind to mark some straight lines on the wall.
But why stop now? Let’s live on the edge and see what happens! So....starting at the top left corner, I neatly folded under and stapled just as I had done on the top edge, keeping an eye on the perfectly straight imaginary vertical line until I reached about halfway down the left side. I smoothed the fabric toward the right side, where I continued turning it under and stapling. Then it was back to the left side to rinse and repeat. Much to my surprise it worked out great! In less than an hour I had a beautiful new HUGE design wall. The ceiling in here is almost 9' tall. So that makes the design wall about 9 x 9. Plenty of room for quilts/portable forts.
When I chose this wall for my design wall, my biggest worry was the heat duct lurking at the bottom. Would it launch my quilt blocks into orbit? I’m thrilled to say that after over two weeks on the design wall, not a single block took flight. This quilt held its ground like a champ.
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