Ok, having struggled with fabric choices in the past, I thought I'd like to get a design wall too but the cost was prohibitive. Some of them went as high at $300-$400. Wa-a-ay out of this girl's budget. Another popular method was to make one from foam insulation board, covering it in flannel or fleece. That took up more room than I wanted so I made one using 1-1/8 yard fleece (only because that was what was left on the bolt at the store so they gave it to me at a discount), a cafe rod, and a pair of command strip hooks. All told I think I have about $10 invested in this.
I washed the fleece and cut the sides even then sewed a casing at the top for the cafe rod. The hardest part was positioning the command strip hooks to hang the cafe rod (I'm vertically challenged).
Mine is probably a little smaller than the average design wall but I don't really have the room for anything too big. For me, this works great. The blocks cling to the fleece without pins and as you can see from the picture, I have room for multiple projects. (The bottom row is for a Christmas table runner and the top two rows are the blocks from quilting class.) Best of all this is totally portable so I can roll it up and take it with me or take it down and put it in the closet when not needed.
