Lori Holt's Design Board Tutorial with Fat Quarter Shop

Hi everyone! We're huge fans of Lori Holt of Bee in my Bonnet. One of our favorite things about her is her creativity and her famous design boards! If you want to make your own design boards, read on to get started. 

Supplies needed: 

Foam Core Board (20" x 30")

Batting

Creative Grids Ruler (must be at least 24.5" in length)

Rotary Cutter

X-acto Knife

Scissors

Glue Gun

Clover Wonder Clips

Aurifil Thread

1/4 yard of your favorite fabric

Step 1:

Take your foam core board and cut a 20"x 10" piece with your X-acto knife and Creative Grids Ruler.

Step 2:

Turn your foam core board onto it's long side and line up your ruler on the 10" mark. 

Step 3:

Cut a 10" x 10" square with your X-acto Knife 

Step 4:

Cut your batting to the exact size of your foam core board (in this case 10" x 10") and get your glue gun hot and ready! 

Step 5:

Starting from one corner, place a line of glue on the board. Since the hot glue dries quickly, glue one side of the batting at a time. Tip: Don't place the glue on all sides at once

Step 6:

Continue until all of your sides are glued down. You will only need to apply batting on one side of your foam core board. 

Step 7:

Now you're ready to cut your binding. Take your 1/4 yard and cut one - 2.5" x width of fabric strip.

Step 8:

Iron your strip flat with lots of steam.

Step 9:

Fold both edges of the binding strip in so that the edges touch. 

Step 10:

Your binding strip should look like this when ironed and now it's time for some stichin'.

Step 11:

Line up your binding strip so that the fold is in the center of the needle. Use a zig zag stitch to stitch over the raw edges (don't forget to back stitch at the beginning and the end to secure the seam)

Step 12:

After you've sewn your binding strip, it's time to attach it to your foam core. With raw edges of the binding strip facing the foam core board, clip your binding strip in place with your Clover wonder clips.

Step 13:

Leaving a 2" tail, hot glue your binding strip to the foam core board. Start in the middle of your foam core. 

Step 14:

Don't glue the whole binding strip down, instead leave a  2" opening  on the foam core board. This is how your foam core should look right now on both sides. 

Step 15:

Now it's time to glue the edges down of your binding strip. Starting on the front (batting side up), glue down your fabric a few inches at a time and finger press onto your batting. Continue until you reach the opening.  Don't forget to do the back (foam core side up) as well!

Step 16:

Trim the ends of the binding strip so that they overlap about 1". Glue one end of the binding strip to the foam core board. Take the other end of the binding strip and fold it under 1/2" and then apply a small dot of glue to keep it in place (this makes for a finished edge).

Step 17:

Now take your binding strip end and glue it down to your foam core board. 

Step 18:

TA-DAH! and now we are done! 

If you still need a little help assembling your Design boards, watch our video tutorial with Lori and she has a tutorial on her blog as well, here is part 1 and part 2 !