Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

I’m really excited to kick off the first week of our Spring 6 Quilts in 6 Weeks Challenge. I decided not to attempt to do both a new tutorial and finish my Week 1 quilt this week. I know my limitations and there just wasn’t going to be enough time to do both. But, never fear we’ll get back to some wonderful new tutorials after we complete our 6 in 6 Challenge. Besides, this week I get to share with you our New April patterns. Yay!

I’m also thrilled to say that over 50 brave quilters are joining me for our 6 in 6 Challenge. Just imagine – if 50 people completed 1 quilt each week during the 6 week Challenge that would be a total of 300 quilts finished! WOWEE! Wouldn’t it be really amazing if that happened??? I’ll keep track of everyone’s finishes and give you a total number of quilts completed at the end of the Challenge.

If you are posting your before/after photos on Facebook, please say they are for the 6 in 6 Challenge and include the week number. Also, if your FB name is different from the name you provided when you signed up, please let me know or I won’t know who you are. This will help me tremendously as I want to make sure that everyone who is completing their quilts on time gets in the weekly drawings.

One of our participants emailed and asked if it was okay to change the size of VRD quilts for the Challenge. Absolutely! As long as the pattern you are using is a VRD Rose Card.

So, everyone who signed up to participate – let’s do this! Together.

6 Quilts in 6 Weeks Challenge Week 1

Whew! Just finished the binding on my Week 1 quilt. Seriously, I kid you not. Right before I sat down to write this post. The good news is – it’s done!

I chose Dusk Delight as my Week 1 quilt. It was from a blog tutorial a while back, you can find the tutorial HERE. Gulp……the tutorial was actually from June 2024. Sheesh! About time this quilt got finished.

Get your digital pattern HERE or print pattern HERE

Dusk Delight is a really fun pattern using 2 1/2″ strips and a coordinating fabric. It would be a really cool design featuring a favorite novelty fabric, too. One important thing you would need to consider, though, is that the fabric for the long sashing strips is cut horizontally and pieced together. That means if your fabric design runs vertically, you would need additional fabric so you could cut your strips vertically.

Okay, here’s my BEFORE photo showing my Dusk Delight quilt top featuring a Bali Pop and a batik companion from Hoffman Fabrics.

Now here is my AFTER photo showing my finished Dusk Delight. Woohoo! The weather was nice enough to take my After photos outside today, which was great. Our spring weather has been a bit weird so far. We had 86 degrees a couple days ago, then the temps dropped to the 30s (with snow showers) with a low of 14 degrees last night. BRRR! Today is in the 50s and tomorrow will be back up in the 70s. It’s like Mother Nature just can’t make up her mind which season to throw at us.

I used a royal blue solid fleece on the back, no batting. I machine quilted with a large meander allover to keep things simple. Besides, when I quilt on fleece I do prefer keeping things simple as the fleece has a lot more stretch than the quilt top does. I used a bright turquoise 100% cotton thread on the top and bottom. And a really dark blue batik for the binding, which I attached with machine. I’m getting better with machine binding the more I do, but I still struggle to make my corners neat, though.

I had to go digging for a binding fabric because I couldn’t remember what fabric I had originally set aside for the binding way back in 2024. LOL! Usually I try to keep the binding fabric tucked inside the quilt top, but somehow along the way the quilt and binding parted ways. That’s okay, though, because I utilized my stash to find a suitable replacement. What’s a stash for anyway???

Here’s a close up of the back of my Dusk Delight, showing my machine quilting. Please ignore the lint…..

So, what VRD quilt did you finish/make for Week 1? You have until Friday 4/10 midnight EST to complete your quilt and either post a before/after photo to our VRD Facebook page or you can email photos to me at tricia@villarosadesigns.com.

Speaking of VRD patterns……….

NEW VRD Rose Card Quilt Patterns for April

I know, I know – I don’t have to say it, but somehow I just have to. I LOVE the Thursday after the first Friday of every month because that’s when I get to show off all the new monthly patterns. Yippee!

It does seem a little ironic, though, doesn’t it that this is Week 1 for our 6 in 6 Challenge with the intent to finish VRD UFOs and here I am enticing you with the NEW April patterns. Ho hum…….that’s my job – to help you complete quilts so you can make new ones without feeling guilty.

Without any more teasing, let’s check out the new patterns!

Get all 5 April quilt print patterns HERE

Allspice is Heidi’s latest pattern! I really like the big and little stars and would love to make it in patriotic fabrics. You can find a kit with the same fabrics as the pattern HERE.

LaValle is Rachelle’s newest mod quilt design. Love the cool colors against the white background, it feels really beachy to me.

Melrose is Pat’s latest offering. I really like how the fabrics are arranged from light to dark, accentuating the V shape. Imagine this one in shades of blue and white (my fav)……. You can find a kit featuring Yellow Sky fabrics HERE.

Crackled is Molly’s new pattern. I love how the light blue strips really pop against the darker fabrics, don’t you? You can find a Crackled kit featuring Kaffe fabrics HERE (and it’s amazing!).

Turnkey is Catherine at Running Doe’s latest mod quilt design. I think this one looks super fun to make. It could be totally scrappy or more controlled. You can find a kit for Turnkey featuring the same fabrics as the pattern cover HERE or a kit with Sun Moments fabrics HERE.

YES, there is more!

Our latest table runner is called Serenity and I know you’ll be incredibly surprised to see that it’s blue and white (you know how much I LOVE blue and white). I used fabric from Moda’s Larking collection for this runner. Truly, the fabric inspired the pattern name because it really is serene. And the fun thing about this runner pattern is that you can use panel squares in place of the big center square and/or the smaller squares. I love patterns that give you options.

Get your digital pattern HERE or your Print pattern HERE

You can find a kit for Serenity featuring Daydreams fabrics HERE.

Now for our April Pillow Pattern – Garden Wishes. Isn’t it adorable? I mean the pillow, not the dog. Yes, Bailly my 3 year old Shih Tzu is adorable, too (and she knows it!). Bailly enjoys posing for photos. As you can see her fur is long and pretty wild right now but next month she’ll be sporting a shorter ‘do.

Are you following along each month with the seasonal pillows? Just think – if you are, then in January 2027, you’ll have 12 months of fun seasonal pillows! How awesome is that??? If you haven’t started (or finished) your pillows for January-March, there’s still plenty of time to get caught up. I’d love to see your pillows on our VRD Facebook page.

Get your digital pattern HERE or your print pattern HERE

You might remember that Heidi and Molly (3 Aunts Quilt Shop, the former VRD quilt shop in CA) are featuring each month’s seasonal pillow pattern as a block of the month project. So, if you missed any of the earlier months, you can find available kits HERE.

Each kit includes the pattern and the fabric for the 18″ pillow front. And the kits are only $10! Better grab yours before they’re gone.

This month’s Garden Wishes kits are:

Kaffe

Tonals

Tula

What fun we have here at VRD……patterns, fabrics, cute little dogs, and more.

Well, that’s it for me this week. I have to get started on my Week 2 quilt for next week.

I’m looking forward to checking out all the great finishes on Facebook, too. So get your Week 1 quilt finished by Friday midnight to get your name in the Week 1 drawing.

Until next week —

Sew. Laugh. Finish. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD