Mini Design Boards

I found a wonderful set of tutorials by Lori Holt of Bee In My Bonnet to make mini design boards!  And you just know I had to make me a couple...

My sister Carol and I visited the new Hobby Lobby while she was here... the first visit to any Hobby Lobby for both of us!  (We were there for almost 2 hours!)  I found some art foam board with adhesive backing...

Lori posted that you can get 6 - 10x10 inch design boards from a 20x30 inch art foam board, which were perfect for her Farmer's Wife blocks.  I decided that I would like 2 - 10x10 in. and one 15x15 in. boards and made the cuts using a dull blade on my rotary cutter and a ruler.

After retrieving some batting remnants from the bin, I peeled off the adhesive backing and stuck the art foam board to the batting.

Using my ruler and rotary cutter, I trimmed the batting even with the edges of the foam board.

Et voila .... three mini design boards!

I decided to put the binding on the boards to protect the edges and cut 2.5" strips of fabric for the binding.   After pressing in half...

...I folded the edges to the center and pressed again.

I chose not to to the zigzag stitch down the center to hold down the raw edges because I'm essentially lazy.  Using my hot glue gun, I ran a line of glue down the center of the binding strip...

...and glued the binding to the edges of the design boards, overlapping the ends.

Next, I ran a ribbon of glue down each edge and glued the binding to both sides.

Lori Holt demonstrates this on her design board binding tutorial so check it out!

"Okay," you are thinking.  "What do I use these for?"

A mini design board would have come in VERY handy during the Civil War QAL, saving me from running between the sewing machine, cutting board, and computer as I tried to lay out the fabric pieces so I could sew them together without messing them up.   Lori demonstrates here:

 Photo courtesy of Lori Holt @ Bee In My Bonnet

Lori noted that you could arrange several blocks on the design boards, stack them, and then carry them to a sew-in without disturbing the pieces!

 Photo courtesy of Lori Holt @ Bee In My Bonnet

With Barbara Brackman's upcoming QAL honoring the fight for women's suffrage, I'm sure I will be using my new design boards!   Thanks for such a great tutorial, Lori!