Today is a kind of blah day — raining off and on, overcast, and grey — not what I’d call a typical summer day at all. It’s been looking more fall-like here in NW PA. In fact, I was looking at one of the maple trees in the back yard yesterday and I actually saw the leaves starting to change on ends of several branches. As much I hate to see summer going, I do love autumn. What’s your favorite season?
As I’ve mentioned before, I get fall fabrics on my brain this time of year! Then I can’t wait to start making fall quilts. What better day than a dreary one to share an awesome FALL tutorial with you? And you can’t get more fall than October Sky!
Don’t let the name of the pattern fool you — you can use any kind of horizontal panel — any one your little hear desires. I’m not using actual fall fabrics for this quilt, but to me, it still feels like a fall quilt. I think it’s the jewel-tone colors. Take a look at these yummy fabrics from Hoffman California Fabrics, one of our quilting partners. The digital panel is called Nightshade and the fabrics are coordinating 1895 Watercolors batiks. Simply scrumptious!
Let’s get started!
1. Trim the selvages off your panel. Horizontal panels can vary slightly so it doesn’t hurt to do a quick measurement of your panel, then you’ll know how it compares to the pattern. You don’t really need these numbers right now, but if your panel is not as wide as the pattern, you will need to make a small adjustment a bit later in the construction process.
2. Cut your border strips for the top and bottom of the panel and sew them on.
3. Now we are going to cut out the squares for the pieced sections at the top and bottom of the panel. I just love these 1895 Watercolors batiks — they go with everything. The dark plum in front is my background.
4. Time to make some Half Square Triangles, or HSTs. Layer 2 squares right sides together, drawn a diagonal line from corner to opposite corner. Sew 1/4″ away from both sides of the drawn line. Cut apart on the drawn line and press open.
5. Having a flannel board — or in my case, the back of a flannel tablecloth clipped to my wall cube unit — to arrange the HSTs makes getting the arrangement right the first time much easier to accomplish.
6. Sew the HSTs together. Make 2 identical pieced sections. You will be flipping one upside down to sew t the bottom of the panel. It makes an interesting design even without the panel in the middle though, doesn’t it?
7. Refer back to your panel measurements. If your panel is not as wide as the panel measurement in the pattern, you may need to add a little extra width to the side background rectangles. To be on the safe side, I added an extra 1″ or so to the side rectangles just to make sure my pieced sections would be wide enough because my panel wasn’t quite the same size as the one listed in the pattern.
It’s okay if the side rectangles make the pieced sections a little wider than the panel — you can trim and square things up in a later step.
8. The most important part of this step is to find the centers of both the pieced sections and the panel. Then match those centers up before sewing because nobody wants off-center sunbursts! LOL!
Once you’re happy with your placement (I used pins to keep everything lined up just right), sew the pieced sections onto the panel. Lookin’ good!
9. Now it’s time to trim and square up the sides of the pieced sections. Ahhh! Much better!
10. Time to add top and bottom borders. I actually increased the width of my borders a couple inches to make the quilt just a little bit bigger as a throw. Do the same if you’d like. Just keep in mind, you might need more fabric if you increase the width of your borders.
11. Ready to add those side borders now? You will need to piece those side borders to make them long enough. VOILA! The top is done!
Since I couldn’t get the breeze to cooperate with me, I took another photo of the October Sky out flat. Gorgeous, isn’t it? The colors are so rich and yummy.
12. The next steps will be layering, quilting, binding, and labeling the quilt. And then….another VRD quilt DONE!
I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! I’d love to see your October Sky quilts — you can post them on our Facebook page HERE or drop me an email if you’d like. And there will be more fun VRD tutorials coming, so stay tuned!
Another week has zoomed by and I am not getting anything accomplished! Or at least it feels that way. We’ve had some lovely February weather here in northwest Pennsylvania and I’m getting those “Spring into Spring” feelings when I want to clean, sort, and organize everything! Hah! I wish I could find an extra 2 hours in every day to get started on that ginormous undertaking, but I do need to sleep at least a few hours every night. You would think working from home, I’d have so much extra time to work on stuff, but sadly that is not the case for me. ARGH!
I want to start with my studio because it kind of looks like a fabric store/flea market threw up. I totally serious here. One of my local quilt shops hosts a “fabric yard sale” every year and I think it’s time to get signed up for it! I wasn’t planning on it this year because of a few time conflicts, but now those conflicts have been postponed, so I am calling today to get my space reserved. Even with less time than usual to prepare, this will inspire me to do some purging in my fabrics and such.
What do you do when your studio gets taken over by fabric, notions, patterns, books, rulers, scraps, and everything else?
VRD Blog Hop Grand Prize Winners
Okay, you’ve all been waiting to hear who won the 2 Grand Prize boxes from the Blog Hop.
Drum roll please………….
Congratulations to:
Joy from Oregon
and
Charlene from Georgia
Here’s a photo from the blog hop showing some of the fun quilting goodies in the boxes:
As for the rest of the prizes, they are being shipping out this week, so if you are a winner and you haven’t received your prize yet, you should have it shortly.
Wow! I think I’ve gone through 3 rolls of tape preparing all the packages! But you know what? I smile while I put on the labels because I know how much each winner is going to enjoy their prize from the Blog Hop.
VRD Bella Vista Panel Quilt Tutorial
Recently, I decided to make a special quilt for a cousin of mine who is having some rough times. I knew I wanted to use a panel because panel quilts go together so quickly, so I thought I’d give our new Bella Vista pattern a go.
This is a fabulous pattern for those horizontal panels. Sometimes it can be hard to find a pattern that uses this type of panel, so Bella Vista is a great pattern to have up your sleeve. It also works with ANY style of horizontal panel and can work with different sizes, too, as long as you measure as you go instead of cutting everything out first.
Don’t want to use a panel? You could replace that section of the quilt with blocks, appplique, or even a novelty fabric. Just keep in mind, you might have to do a little math. Yay math! Love math!
Looking for a panel to jump-start a new project? You can go HERE and check out Villa Rosa’s large selection of panels.
Let’s get started on our quilt project!
So, the first thing I did was gather up my fabrics. My cousin loves eagles so I chose this flying eagle panel and a coordinating eagle print along with a light grey (I decided not to use the medium grey you see in the photo) texture, red tonal, and a blue tonal for the binding. My plan will be to back this quilt with fleece to make a cozy quilt for my cuz, so it will be like wrapping him up in a warm hug when he needs one.
Quilts are one of the BEST forms of therapy for folks going through tough times in their lives, wouldn’t you agree?
You all know how much I love The Quilts of Valor Foundation and the impact they are making one quilt at a time. To learn more about the Quilts of Valor Foundation, go HERE.
My cousin does not have a military background, but he loves red, white, and blue and is very patriotic, so an eagle quilt will be a good fit for him.
Now I have all the fabrics ready, it’s time to get going on this quilt project. The first thing I’m going to do is trim off the selvedges on the panel. This panel is bigger than the dimensions of the panel in the pattern, but I don’t really need to cut it down. Instead, I will measure as I go before I cut my fabrics.
Here I am cutting the red strips for the first border.
Next I measured the panel through the center horizontally. Those who know me won’t be surprised when I share this little Lazy Quilter hint about measuring. Tehehe……
I don’t use a ruler or a measuring tape. Nope, not at all to measure when I’m putting a quilt together. Instead I use my fabric or border strip or whatever I’m sewing together in order to get the right measurement. I’m a pretty consistent quilter, so this works well for me. I will say that this technique may not work for everyone, so use it at your own risk. LOL!
I folded my panel in half horizontally and laid it on my flat surface. I smoothed it all out nice and flat with the edges even. Then I gathered up my border strips which were already sewn end to end to make longer strips. These will be sewn to the top and bottom as per the directions.
I carefully laid the border strips out along the folded center. Then I smoothed the strips and lined up the edge of the strip to the edge of the panel. I usually put a pin at the edge to keep things from sliding around. Finally, I took a deep breath and cut the border strips to the width of the panel. I repeat this process all over again for the side borders, too, except that I use the vertical center to measure with, instead of the horizontal. I hope this makes sense…….
Now let’s sew the border strips onto the top and bottom of the panel.
Let me tell you how I do that, too, because I have another little trick up my sleeve.
First, I find the middle of the panel and the middle of the strip, match them up, and put a pin in the centers. Next I smooth the border strip along the edge of the panel and pin the outside, matching up the edges of the strip to the panel edges. I also put a pin at the bottom outside edge of the strip in a horizontal fashion (see this trick in the photo below on the left side). This helps to keep the strip square to the panel. Such a simple little thing can really make a difference. I learned this tip from an experienced quilter when I a beginner.
Then I add some more pins between the center and the ends before I head to the sewing machine.
Here is the panel with the first red border sewn onto all four sides. Don’t you just love the cool framed and matted effect of the printed borders in brown and navy around the edge of the panel.
So far, so good. Let’s keep moving.
I cut my second border strips using the light grey fabric. Next, I sewed 2 strips together to make a longer border strip. I decided to sew my border strips together with a straight seam instead of doing a diagonal seam for this project. It’s quicker and has less fabric waste, but mainly the tonals will hide the straight seam. I like to press my seam open to reduce the bulk. (I did the same with the first red border, but didn’t do a photo of it.) Take a look at the last photo in this group and you can hardly see on the front side of the border strip where I sewed the seam.
Now to measure the grey border strips against the panel just like I did above with the first red border. Time to pin, pin, pin. Then sew, sew, sew. Oops, sewing over my pins………
Here’s the quilt so far with the first red border and the second grey border on all four sides. Looking good!
Now I’m going to add the third border, which only goes on the top and bottom of the quilt.
You know, if you wanted to, you could sew the next borders together before sewing the border strip sets to the top and bottom of the quilt center. Just sayin’…….
Anyway, let’s add the top and bottom red borders.
I can’t believe how big this quilt is getting to be! It will be a really nice size when it’s finished.
I think for the eagle print border strip and the last red border, I am going to sew the strips together and then sew the border strip sets to the top and bottom of the quilt center. I wish I would have done this when I sewed the previous red border to the top and bottom (as I hinted to all of you, above, which was really after the fact). I think it would have been a bit easier. Did I mention this quilt is getting big? LOL.
I had to be careful when I was sewing the eagle print strips together into a longer border strip because it is directional and I didn’t want my eagles flying in different directions. There’s just something wrong with eagles flying backwards……
Then I had to watch when I was sewing the outer red border strips to the eagle print border strips because of the eagle print’s directionality — I really didn’t want my eagles flying upside down when I sewed them to the quilt center.
So if you are working with a directional fabric, take your time and double check placement before you sew, that way you don’t have to rip out your stitches.
Okay, the border strips are sewn together and now I need to sew them to the panel quilt. Again, I have to make sure I’m sewing the right border strip set to the right part of the quilt, or my eagles will be belly up. Deep breath….here goes!
YAY! All the eagles are flying straight and true! I am so relieved about that.
(Psst. In the bottom right corner of the above photo, you can see prizes in priority mailers getting ready to be mailed — they took over my comfy chair in my studio!)
Here’s a couple more photos of the finished Bella Vista top. I headed outside for these photos, even though it was a bit breezy. I just love to see quilts swaying in the breeze on a clothesline on a nice day, don’t you? Right now I can close my eyes and smell the clean fresh outside smell of quilts (and laundry) hung outside to dry on a breezy spring or summer day. Ahhhhhhh.
I mentioned above that my plan was to back this quilt with cozy fleece. When I put fleece on the back of a quilt, I do not use batting because it makes the quilt too heavy and too thick. I will most likely machine quilt it simply, probably with a large meander. I have learned over the years, that when quilting fleece, it’s not a good idea to cross over lines when you are machine quilting because fleece stretches and the cotton fabric on the front of the quilt doesn’t stretch like that. I definitely don’t want bunchy areas and pleats on the back of my quilt.
I’ll have to head over to one of my local quilt shops so I can use the tables in the classroom to layer and pin this quilt. Of course, I’ll probably do a spot of shopping while I’m there…………. Sorry, not sorry.
I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day last week. Did you get a chance to make the Talking Turkey Quilt block yet? If you didn’t stop by and read last week’s post with my cute Thanksgiving turkey block tutorial, you can find it HERE.
On another note, I just finished making the quilt top for the Villa Rosa Designs Rose Card pattern, Splendor, so thought I’d share another panel tutorial for you. Then beginning next week for the rest of December, I’m going to blog about Christmas-y quilty fun things, but we’ll probably go back to tutorials again in January when you are all itching to start some new projects.
This is Splendor. It is an AWESOME pattern — who knew you could take a panel, some fabric for sashing, and a handful of fat quarters and come up with a quilt as big as this one turns out. It’s an incredibly clever pattern by our VRD designer, Molly Cook, and uses the whole fat quarter to build the sections around the quilt. I was so amazed to see how slick everything went together and how nicely everything fit.
LOVE LOVE LOVE this pattern! If you don’t have it, you need to get it! You can buy the Splendor pattern HERE:
Great quilt, huh? I can already see visions of sugar plum quilts using the Splendor pattern dancing in your head. Don’t you just love how the panel is offset? Isn’t that unique? And everything truly goes together like magic!
Let’s get started!
Splendor Panel Quilt Tutorial
Time to gather up your panel, sashing, and fat quarters. I had this great winter panel in my stash and thought a blue and white version of Splendor would be fun. I grabbed the blue tonal for my sashing and then “shopped” in my blue fat quarter bins. As a final thought, I added the white on white fabric from my yardage drawer to represent the snow. Looking back, though, I think I could have skipped the white on white and just went with shades of blue, but that’s okay. I think the quilt will still turn out just fine. Let me know what you think once you’ve seen how the top turned out down below.
I did end up swapping out the light silvery blue fabric you see in the photo because when I opened it up to cut, the fabric had some fading. I didn’t think I could cut around the faded areas and have enough fabric to cut the pieces I needed so I found a replacement. No worries.
Next you need to measure your panel, because panels come in all different sizes these days. My friend Mary Lee and I were just talking about this. 24″ x 42″ used to be the standard size for panels, but now they come in 36″ x 44″, 44″ x 44″, and everything in between!
So take the time to measure your panel. You may need to trim your panel to the size noted in the pattern. Or if your panel is a bit narrower, you may need to add a bit to the sashing so your center ends up the correct size. If you don’t want to trim your panel, you can also adjust the size of the sashing if needed.
I can’t stress enough how important these measurements (for the panel plus the sashing) are. This is what makes the whole quilt work so if your measurements are off, you will have problems sewing the sections to the center of the quilt. Isn’t it better to take your time right now and get the measurements correct right up front? You know the saying, “measure twice, cut once?”
Once you’ve measured your panel and decided whether you need to trim it or add a little extra to the sashing, then it’s time to cut out your sashing strips. My panel was a bit too narrow so I ended up adding a half inch all the way around to the sashing in order to get the correct size. Then I was ready to sew on the sides and the top and bottom.
Tricia’s Tip: When I add borders to a quilt, I take my time. First, I find the center of both the side of the quilt and the border strip. Then I match my centers and pin (see the lime green circle in the photo). Next I pin the ends and I add a pin perpendicular to the edge of the quilt/border in order to keep things all nice and square (see the red circles in the photo) — I do this at both ends of the border. Finally, I add pins spaced between the middle and each end. Sounds like a lot of work, but it really helps me to keep my borders straight. Who wants borders that stand up and wave?
Here is my panel with the sashing around it. I love how the mottled blue really brings the color out of this mostly monochromatic panel. It reminds me of winter here in Pennsylvania.
Let’s keep moving! I promise you, this is the fussiest part of the quilt. Once you get the right measurements, it’s a breeze from here out.
Time to cut out the pieces from the fat quarters. Follow the cutting diagram in the pattern. If you feel comfortable, you can stack a couple fat quarters together to reduce some of your cutting, but it’s perfectly fine to take your time and cut each fat quarter individually.
Something to think about — as all fat quarters are NOT cut a true 18″ x 22″, it’s not a bad idea to have an extra coordinating fat quarter around just in case you can’t get all four rectangles out of each fat quarter or in case you make a cutting mistake. Extra fabric are not bad words in my vocabulary. Besides, it will go into another project……..someday……..
So the next thing to do is to sew each group of rectangles together into strips. There are a couple options here:
You could organize your fabrics and keep them in the same order in each section — wouldn’t it be cool to organize your pieces from light to dark or dark to light?
You could sew your rectangles together and make sure that each section has a different arrangement of fabrics, making your quilt look scrappy and relaxed.
I chose to do the second option (big surprise to those of you who know me!!! LOL!), which takes a bit more time, but I really like the finished result. Either option will turn out great, so just pick one.
I sewed the pieces together for the right side section first. I just did it randomly at my sewing machine. Then I pressed the seams, folded the pieced strip, and found the center of the strip. Next I folded the sashed panel and found the center on the right side of it. Finally I matched up the centers, pinned the pieced section to the sashed panel, and sewed them together.
After I got the right side section on and I pressed it, I laid out the pieces for the left side. Pinned. Sewed the rectangles together. Pressed.
I was totally excited when I realized how fast the sides went on the sashed panel. Like magic!
I did find I’d somehow made a mistake when I went to match up my centers and pin my left side section to the sashed panel. My pieced section was too long. Huh! What was going on here?!?
I reread the instructions and looked closely at the cover quilt and diagrams. After a couple minutes, I went back and remeasured only to discover I had cut each of my pieces a half inch too big, so of course the pieced section was too long when I went to pin it to the panel.
What do you think I did?
I matched up my centers and ignored the excess fabric sticking out beyond the sashed panel. I pinned and sewed like normal and then I trimmed the excess off of each side with an acrylic ruler and my rotary cutter (with a cutting mat underneath), making my left pieced section flush with the sashed panel.
You might notice in the photo that my top and bottom rectangles on the left side are a bit narrower than the other rectangles. But that’s okay. Everything will still fit together great and I really doubt it will make much difference in how the quilt looks in the end because of the different-sized pieces all around the sashed panel.
I wouldn’t have even mentioned my oops, but I like to point out my mistakes and how I handle them. Sometimes my mistakes are just happy accidents — or good things in disguise. It helps to share my mistakes with other quilters so they don’t do the same thing I did. Just ask the members of my Friday group (BIG Shout out to Gail, Mary Lee, Robin, Sherry, Gaynel, Missi, Deb, Anita, Jean, Donna and Kim).
Now it’s time to sew the top and bottom sections together. Again, I did each one separately to make sure I liked my random fabric placement — I didn’t want any fabrics to be touching the same fabric in another section of the quilt.
So here it is — my completed Splendor quilt top. What do you think?
This was definitely a FUN and FAST quilt project and I hope that you will give it a try! If you’ve made Splendor before, I’d love to see your pictures. You can email them to me at tricia@villarosadesigns.com or post them on our Facebook page.
Before I go, here’s a fun video tour at Quilt Market recorded by Jaftex, just click the link below:
After talking about our VRD Rose Card patterns featuring quilt panels a couple weeks ago, I thought it would be fun to do a series of Panel Quilt Tutorials for you. You can find the Panel post HERE.
There’s no way I would be able to do ALL of the Rose Cards I featured in the Panel post, but I thought it would be fun to do some of my favorites. I hope these Panel Quilt tutorials will inspire you to reduce your own stash of panels by making quilts — what an unusual thing to do with fabric, right???
So let’s make Hillside Charm! I just really love this Panel pattern — it looks great with whatever panel and fabrics you use. Don’t have 5″ charm squares? Cut fat quarters, scraps, or even yardage into the number of squares you need. Want to make it bigger? Add another border? Want it smaller? Don’t add the extra border. LOVE LOVE LOVE Hillside Charm! You can buy the pattern HERE.
Right now we even have some great Hillside Charm kits for sale on the website — Halloween, Christmas and more — so check them out HERE.
Before we jump into the tutorial, I have to do a SHOUT OUT to Hoffman Fabrics and a big thank you to them for providing the fabrics for this Hillside Charm Quilt. The collection is called Wading with Water Lilies. Isn’t it beautiful? In addition to the gorgeous digitally-printed panel and coordinates, I also used some of the basics from the 1895 Watercolors collection and 885 Dot Batiks collection.
YAY! We have the panel and some of the coordinates on the website. You can find them HERE. Grab them now because when they’re gone, they’re gone!
The gorgeous panel. Just look at the amazing array of colors that digital printing can create!
These are the companion fabrics.Here are the accents I used from 1895 and 885.
Now you’ve seen the fabrics, lets get to the tutorial!
Hillside Charm Tutorial
The first thing I did was trim the panel to the dimensions listed in the pattern. Sigh……I really hated cutting anything off this amazing panel but if I wanted to make the quilt, it had to be done. So I did it. I also cut out the squares and the strips. The pattern actually calls for a pack of charm squares, but since I didn’t have an actual charm pack, I went ahead and cut the squares I needed. I won’t have as much variety as I would have with a charm pack, but it will still be beautiful. Sometimes, less is more.
Next I sewed the side strips on to the panel. Then I sewed squares to the ends of the top and bottom strips before sewing them into the panel. It’s already taking shape. I’m really excited about this quilt — it is going to be really gorgeous!
Time to sew my charm squares into strips for the next border. I just had to make sure not to sew 2 of the same fabric side to side. Easy peasy.
Here you can see that I took the time to pin the pieced charm square strip to the framed panel. This is an important step because I don’t want my quilt to be a funny shape. Nope, I like ’em squared up as much as I can as I go along. And one of the best ways to do that is to match your centers and your ends and pin generously.
Yay! Let’s sew the pinned charm square side borders on. Sigh….I must admit I hate removing my pins as I sew and I am guilty of sewing over my pins. Mea culpa.
Here are the pieced charm square borders added to the sides. I am so excited how this quilt is coming together.
Now let’s add the top and bottom charm square pieced strips. Pin, pin, pin. Sew, sew, sew. I really like how the pieced border is giving the look of Four Patch blocks in the corners. Tricky, tricky!
More side borders to add. This time I have to be more careful with the placement of the squares so that I don’t accidentally line up 2 of the same fabric, especially since I’m not using as much variety as a charm pack would provide (although, nowadays there are lots of duplicates in a charm pack because fabric collections are a lot smaller than they used to be).
Here are my last borders — the top and bottom pieced borders. Now you can see the rectangles of the blue/green marbled fabric at each corner, mimicking the inner blue/green marbled inner border. Cool detail!
DONE!
I can’t wait to see your Hillside Charm Quilts! You can email your Hillside Charm photos me at tricia@villarosadesigns.com and I’ll share them on the blog and Facebook.
Thanks for sewing along with this tutorial. Stay tuned for another tutorial next week.
Wait! I can’t go yet without showing you the NEW November Rose Card patterns.
Check out these awesome new patterns. If you attended Quilt Market or Festival last week, you already had a sneak peak. Lucky you!
Oh look! Another Panel quilt! You can buy the November set of 5 Rose Cards HERE for $8.95.
This is my new table runner, Baskets, for this month:
I hope you find a little time to get sewing because the Holidays are right around the corner and if you are like me, you have a long list of quilty gifts you want to make even though you know you’ll never get them all finished. The New November Rose Cards could help you jump start your holiday sewing! Just sayin’….
I was so excited after last week’s post about Panels and our Villa Rosa Rose Card patterns that work for panels, I just had to play with my stuff! I decided to go ahead and get the top done for Hypnotized, using my adorable Halloween Gnomes,. Who doesn’t love gnomes???? I just had to, I didn’t want to wait until next year, although I might not get it quilted and bound until next Halloween.
If you missed last week’s Panel Post, you can find it HERE.
The first thing you need to do is to cut out your pieces. I used this adorable Halloween Gnome novelty fabric from Northcott instead of a panel. The cool thing about quilt patterns made for panels is that you can usually substitute a novelty print as long as you cut it to the right dimensions.
YAY! GNOMIES! (That’s what my sister, Tracy, calls them.)
I did not cut the pieces for the inner and outer border out yet. I like to wait until I have the center of the quilt made because sometimes my measurements don’t exactly match the measurements given in the pattern.
If this happens to you too, don’t cut the border strips until you can measure your quilt center. That way you can cut the border strips (and piece the strips together if needed) to your specific measurements, not someone else’s.
Remember when we talked about the “perfect” quarter inch seam allowance? Go HERE if you need a refresher. There really isn’t one. Basically, everyone’s quarter inch seam is a touch different, either a bit smaller or bigger than that elusive quarter inch. Anyway, as each of us use a slightly different quarter inch seam, the dimensions of our quilts are going to be slightly different too. That makes sense, doesn’t it?
So sew with your best quarter inch seam — accuracy is more important than a perfect quarter inch seam in most cases — and measure your quilt before you cut the borders.
Let’s keep moving!
After you’ve cut your pieces, sew strips to the sides of the small square. Then sew strips to the top and the bottom.
You know, I photographed every step of this process, but for some reason all my photos are not on my iPad. Methinks my cat Griffin might have deleted photos when he was painting on his iPad cat painting app.
A cat that paints? No, that’s not strange at all……. What’s strange is that he scratches at my iPad (covered with a protective screen cover) and gets out of his painting game and into other apps somehow. Kids….
Anyway, sew strips to the sides of this block and then add the strips to the top and bottom. Voila! This is your center square. Make 1. (Sorry for the EQ images, but the photos are gone!) Silly Griffy!
Now sew strips to the side of your other 8 squares. Then add the longer strips to the top and the bottom. Make 8.
Here are all my blocks ready to go. Aren’t they fun???
Wow! This quilt is coming together fast. Now to add some background rectangles to our quilt blocks.
Sew a background rectangle to the top of a Framed block. Make 3.
Please Note: If your fabric is not directional, you can skip adding background rectangles to various sides of the Framed square blocks. Instead, sew background rectangles to one side of each of the 8 Framed square blocks.
Sew a background rectangle to the bottom of a Framed block. Make 3. (Sorry, these photos are gone, too.) Argh….Griffin…….
Now sew a background rectangle to the left side of a Framed block. Make 1.
Lastly, sew a background rectangle to the right side of a Framed block. Make 1.
Whew! That was a little confusing, I know, but now we get to put things together!
Sew 2 top facing background rectangle units with a bottom facing background rectangle unit in the center. Then sew a long background rectangle to each end of the row. Make 1 row.
Make the bottom row pretty much the same as the top row, above, but reversed — sew 2 bottom facing background rectangle unit with a top facing background rectangle unit in the center. Then sew large background rectangles to the ends of the row. Make 1 row.
Now for the middle row — sew a right facing background rectangle unit, the single center block, and a left facing background rectangle unit at the end. Make 1 row.
Next sew the 3 rows together.
Isn’t this quilt top adorable so far? The orange frame in the center block really pops, don’t you think? Can’t wait to get the borders on next!
Now sew the inner border strips to the sides of the quilt center. You’ll probably have to piece the strips so they’re long enough. Add the top and bottom inner border strips, piecing them too.
Almost there! It’s time to add outer border strips to the sides — piece those border strips carefully, please. Finally! Our last step for the top — sew on the top and bottom borders, piecing your strips.
Houston….we have a problem!
I just discovered I don’t have enough border print fabric to sew borders on all 4 sides of the quilt.
Whatever can I do???
Why, just add borders to the top and bottom of the quilt! Good solution on the fly. That’s how I roll.
Yay! Mission accomplished — adorable Halloween Gnomies quilt top completed before Halloween! (Sorry the photos of the quilt as it gets put together aren’t very good — I am limited on space for working with larger quilts, so here I’m hanging the quilt top on a clothesline strung in the basement. Hey, we do what we have to do, right?)
What do you think?
As I write this post, I’m crazily packing my stuff to head to International Quilt Market in Houston, TX. I haven’t been to Market since 2019 — before the Pandemic. I’m really excited as this will be my first time being part of the Villa Rosa team.
If you’re headed to Market, stop by the booth, we are Booth #747, right behind the center Info booth on the main walkway. VRD is also doing 2 Schoolhouse lectures on Friday, Oct 28th. If you’re headed to Quilt Festival, Villa Rosa Designs will have a booth there, too. We’d love to say “hi.”
Sigh….Back to my packing.
Stay tuned — next week’s post will be all about my Quilt Market trip. The sights, the sounds, the food….
After our 8 week Basic Quilting Skills for Beginners series, I find I’m ready for something new. How about you???
I thought it would be fun to talk about quilt panels and what quilts you can make with them. I must admit that I have a big stash of quilt panels. I know that admitting you have an addiction is the first step to recovery, right?
SHHHHH! My super secret stash of panels!
I’ve collected panels for a long time, but I rarely seem to use them or make anything out of them. Sure, I’ve slapped borders around some of them and whipped up a quick baby quilt or simple wall hanging, but does that really count? When I taught free motion quilting classes in the past, I even used a panel as a project so students would actually be quilting a “real” quilt, but not something they’d worked on for hours and hours.
If the quilt police showed up at my front door and asked me about my fabric stash and all my panels, I would say: Who me?? I have no idea where these panels and all this fabric came from. I think fabric is like rabbits and multiplies when you’re not looking. That makes sense, doesn’t it? But would it work?
Well, I’m hear to tell you that Villa Rosa Designs has a lot of GREAT patterns specifically for quilt panels — for vertically printed panels, horizontal panels, and even panels with printed “quilt squares.” Yay! Villa Rosa to your rescue — and mine, too!
Let’s take a look at some of the panel quilt Rose Card patterns. You can find ALL of these patterns on the website, www.villarosadesigns.com
Vertical panels seem to be the most common type of quilt panel and we have quite a few Rose Card patterns to choose from.
One of my absolute favorite Rose card patterns for vertical panels is Hillside Charm! I know I’ve mentioned this one before, but it is an awesome pattern and I have to show it off again! You’ll probably read about it later in the future too. Sorry, not sorry.
Isn’t this just the coolest pattern? Aren’t you already mentally going through your panel stash to see what you can use for Hillside Charm? I know I am….
Another one of my favorites is Daring Spirit — the perfect quilt for a Quilt of Valor as long as you add a narrow border around it to meet the minimum width requirement for a Quilt of Valor. You can check out my Daring Spirit tutorial HERE and my Quilts of Valor presentation post HERE.
Take a look at these terrific Rose Card patterns for vertical panels. Grab ’em while they’re hot!
Did you know Villa Rosa has Rose Card patterns for horizontal panels, too? This is awesome because patterns for horizontal printed panels can be hard to find!
October Sky is one of our most popular patterns. I bet you can see why! The really cool thing is that the top and bottom star sections are made with half square triangles, which go together like a snap when you take a little extra care to place your colors correctly.
Shh! Don’t tell anyone and when you make your October Sky quilt, everyone will be in awe at seeing your amazing quilting skills. I can’t wait to make one of these for myself.
Here are some more Rose Card patterns for horizontal panels. Nice!
We even have Rose Card patterns for quilt panels with printed blocks or squares!
Hypnotized is one of our new Rose Cards this year. I just love the look of this quilt — it looks difficult to make, but I know it won’t be because it’s a Rose Card pattern.
I’m all set to make Hypnotized. The only problem is that by the time I get to my project, it will be too late for Halloween this year so I guess I’ll have to say it’s early for next year.
Here’s my fabric for the Hypnotized Rose Card pattern — don’t you love it??? Instead of panel squares, though, I’m going to cut the squares from the gnome print and I’m going to use the stripe for my border. You’ll have to stay tuned for this quilt coming soon, or at least some time before Halloween 2023. LOL!
Yay! More Rose Card patterns for panels with printed squares/blocks. Of course, you can always substitute squares of any novelty fabric you love in these patterns, which makes them very versatile.
BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!
I think you know me by now (and how much I like saying that phrase), so of course there’s more.
You know those really big panels that measure roughly 36″ x 42″? Well, we even have a couple patterns for these big panels, too.
And if you know anything about Villa Rosa Designs, you can bet we’ll be adding new patterns for panels in the future. In fact, I have a few ideas of my own.
That’s it for today. I’m off to play with my panels.
Villa Rosa Quilts 