Quilt Block Basics — The Y Block, Rose Card List, and Hoffman Fabrics + VRD

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

Wow! We’ve got lots to talk about today — I hope you are ready!

Let’s start off with our Quilt Blocks Basics first — today we are taking a good look at the Y BLOCK!

I did the HSTs and QSTs before tackling the Y block because a Y block is a combination of a QST and an HST. Sounds weird, I know, but really, that’s what it is.

There are other names for the Y block unit, but for the purpose of this post, we’ll stick with calling it the Y block.

Let’s look at some blocks using the Y block unit:

Bet you’ve never heard of most of these blocks — they were pretty new to me, too.

Now let’s play a little bit with this very versatile quilt block unit. We are going to use 4 Y block units together in a 4 Patch configuration.

Let’s see what happens when we flip the Y block units around in the block:

Wow! We can really come up with some fun blocks that will make interesting quilt designs!

I think you can see the versatility of the Y block unit in the block variations above. Just imagine what you could come up with if you started changing out the fabrics as well as moving the units about. This is only a 4 patch block frame — what about a 9 patch frame? What if you combined this unit with other units like HSTs, QSTs, or others?

It is simply mind-boggling, isn’t it???

Electric Quilt 8 Software makes it sew easy to play with these units! I can get lost for hours playing with blocks in EQ….

How to Make a Y Block

There are several different ways to tackle the construction of the Y block unit. I decided not to reinvent the wheel because there are so many different ways to make a traditional Y block.

Here’s a great traditional Y block tutorial from Scissortailquilting.com just like the way I would demonstrate how to make it. YAY MATH! They even include the math formulas for you as well as a cutting chart.

The traditional method works great for putting together Y block units, except for one little thing — you make 4 units with mirror images, which is terrific if you want mirror images, but what if you need a Y block unit but not its mirror image?????

Seriously, though, who wants to make twice as many blocks as they need to, which takes twice as much time and twice as much fabric???

My friend, Cathey Laird, of Cathey Marie Designs, was fascinated with the Y block unit and pondered the mirror image issue for a long time until she came up with a solution. Cathey invented a cool Y block ruler which eliminated the mirror image problem — instead of mirror images, you get 4 identical Y block units!

You can find Cathey’s ruler HERE.

Here’s a great Y block tutorial done by Cathey herself:

Y Block VRD Rose Card Patterns

I went through the entire pattern catalog and found only a few Rose Card patterns featuring Y blocks.

Get Crossed Paths HERE

Get Twisted HERE

Well, I see new Y block designs for VRD in the future! LOL!

Speaking of Rose Cards, I wanted to share something very cool with you!

Rose Card Tracker

Did you know VRD has a printable list of ALL the Rose Cards????? This might be new to you because it is actually located on the wholesale website, but the list is for everyone who loves Rose Cards.

It is updated every month to include each month’s new patterns, too.

You can find the VRD Rose Card list HERE.

Not too long ago, I finally got all my Rose Cards organized and alphabetized in small clear plastic crates with lids. Yay me!

So next I decided to figure out which Rose Cards I was missing in my collection.

I easily printed out the list (3 pages long as of right now) and sorted through all my Rose Cards to find out which ones I did not have. Then I ordered all the ones I was missing. LOL! As long as I keep up with the new cards, I will have a complete collection of VRD Rose Cards.

It really didn’t take me too long to go through the list because it is in alphabetical order, just like my Cards. Below, you can see that I used red Xs to mark the ones I had. Then, when I did my order, I just ordered all the ones without a red X. I put a small dot in the empty spaces as I went along so I knew which ones I had already added to my order (in case I had to stop at some point and go back to it later).

As of right now I have 3 of the plastic storage boxes almost full with my Cards, so I will probably be adding a 4th as soon as my new Cards arrive. I plan to keep my Cards organized that way, then it will be a snap to find any Card I am looking for.

Yay! Three cheers for organization!!!! How many Rose Cards do you have? How many do you need to complete your collection?

Check Out Our VRD Rose Card Patterns in the NEW Hoffman Spring Project Book

We’ve been working with Hoffman Fabrics for a while now. Their new Spring catalogs are out and I’m excited to share the new Spring 2023 Project Book with you. It is simply drool-worthy!!!!

Hoffman Project Catalog Spring 2023

Sew. Dream. And head to your local quilt shop to find Hoffman Fabrics and VRD Rose Cards.

Until next Thursday —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD