Tasting Table Tuesday - Basting Wall Update

I have been raving about my basting wall for some time now, and while it worked very well for me, it wasn't very pretty.  If you remember, I hung two old (mismatched and discolored) cardboard dressmakers pattern boards on the wall, and pinned each layer of my quilt to the board with straight pins.  Then I would use quilter's safety pins to pin all the layers together.

The only wall space I have available in my house, is in our bedroom.  Those tatered, old pattern boards looked pretty nasty, I have to admit.  So I decided to upgrade.

Here is the OLD basting wall...

And here is the NEW, improved version!

I used these styrofoam panels from Lowes that are really designed to insulate garage doors.  The great thing about these panels is that they have a tough plastic coating on the exposed side of the panels.  That gives a nice clean smooth surface against my quilts, and keeps the foam intact when pinning.  They were a special order item but I learned that if you place the order from a store computer they ship for free!

I only had to trim the bottom two to fit my space.  The top four are right out of the box.  I put strapping tape around the outside edges of the panels to keep the edges neat and also kept the shop vac handy while cutting.  Those little bits of foam go everywhere!

There are eight panels in a box, and I only used six for my space, so I still have two panels left.  I will probably wrap each of them with a piece of batting and make a pair of portable design walls.

To mount the panels on the wall, I basically followed these directions for making a design wall that I found on The Quilting Edge blog, attaching them with Command Picture Hanging Strips.  So far, they seem to be working.  I'll let you know after I've basted a quilt or two if they stay on the wall.  I followed all the instructions, including cleaning the wall with alcohol first, applying firm pressure for 30 seconds, and waiting an hour before attaching the panels.  Hopefully they'll stay up...

This is a dual purpose wall, because if I want to use it as a design wall, all I have to do is pin a piece of batting to it and I'll be all set!

One thing I should point out, if you're considering these...  I chose them because of the size and the plastic coating on the exposed side.  I did not realize that there are grooves cut into the back side.  This allows the panels to flex when installing on a garage doors - their intended use.  I don't think this will be an issue, as there is still enough foam surface to pin into, but it was a bit of a surprise to me, since Lowes doesn't mention it in their product description.

Just thought you might want to know...

Cheers!