Category: quilt festival

quilt festival · quilt market · Rose Cards

Favorite Finds at International Quilt Market and Quilt Festival 2024

rosecards4 Comments

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

Today is my last post about Quilt Market and Festival.

We’ve covered the insider’s view of Market HERE and the 50 year Celebration of International Quilt Festival HERE. We’ve also explored some of the amazing and wonderful quilts on display this year during Market and Festival HERE.

So what’s left to talk about????

All the cool stuff at Market and Festival, of course!

My Finds at Market and Festival

I’m going to share with you the things that inspired me at Market and Festival. I wish I could showcase every single thing I saw because there was sew much eye candy in Houston, but that would make this post into a very long long book, I’m afraid. So I guess I’ll focus on the things that I found interesting, cool, or just plain fun, in no particular order.

Just sit back and enjoy…………

Sew Q Laser

I watched a demo of this cool system in the Sew Q booth. It really was quite fascinating! I’ve been using my trusty 1/4″ seam guide foot for a long time, but I can really see a lot of possibilities with this laser system. You can check out their website HERE.

Thimtec Thimble Tape

The Thimtec booth was right beside our VRD booth during Market and I had the opportunity to stop by to learn about this new product. Thimtec tape is easy to use, only sticks to itself, and molds to the shape of YOUR finger. It’s reusable and economical, Cool beans!

I took my pink roll to my Friday group and everyone made an individualized thimble to take home and use. After everyone was done creating one, I still had half a roll left!

You can find video demos and more info on their website HERE or find it on Amazon HERE.

Classy American Quilt Design Walls

I met the owner, Tony, when he asked if I could watch his booth for a couple minutes. Of course I did and I had the fun opportunity to play with the Quilt Design Walls. I must say that this is now sew totally on my quilter’s wish list! The smaller one (in the photo above) is big enough for a long throw quilt, but my dream is the really big one because — gasp — it has a remote control! AND I LOVE GADGETS! LOL! The small one would be great, too, as it goes up and down easily just like your window blinds. I tested it out, of course, and discovered that if you were careful putting it up and down that your quilt blocks could actually stay stuck to the design wall. Brilliant!

You can see Tony himself introduce his design wall in the video below and you can check out Tony’s website HERE. Just tell him Tricia sent you. Tehehe……..

Patience Griffin Books

I don’t remember what she said to me that had me laughing that hard………….

I had the pleasure to meet Patience Griffin at Quilt Market. In addition to being the popular author of both the Kilts and Quilts book series and the Sweet Home, Alaska series, Patience is a quilter and also a new fabric designer with Riley Blake Designs. You can see Patience’s collection, A Touch of Celtic, coming to a shop near you in May 2025, HERE.

If you love quilt fiction as much as I do, you can find her books HERE.

Printed Felt Board Story Panels

This one is for all you librarians, teachers, early childhood educators, parents, and grandparents. I mentioned this adorable felt printed panel by Jennifer Long for Riley Blake a couple weeks ago (the Created with Love panel, above, will be available in shops April 2025), but I just had to include it again on my “favorite finds” list.

When I was a children’s librarian, I created my own felt board pieces to go along with the stories, rhymes, songs, and activities I used for my weekly felt board story as part of my library toddler story time. Oh! How these wonderful shapes would have been a fabulous addition to my felt activity repertoire! Although I am no longer a librarian or early childhood educator, I still have very fond memories of engaging the youngest library patrons with fun stories, songs, and rhymes accompanied by my humble pieces.

Here’s a Nativity felt panel by Jennifer, which is available right now. You can find it HERE.

Goldie Lou’s Shirts

Image from the Goldie Lou website

Goldie Lou’s was a new business at Market and Festival this year. They were selling the most fun quilting shirts and sweatshirts with the cutest tongue-in-cheek sayings! Oh sew fun! I bought a couple shirts myself to show off my quirky quilter style, including one of the shirts you see above (it is sew me!). You can find more info about Goldie Lou’s HERE.

Horn of America Deluxe Storage Chest

I am sew sew in love with this cabinet! It has drawers and shelves and cubbies on one side and a flip up extension table on the back where you can even add more shelves! This would be a real dream piece of furniture in anyone’s sewing space! I kept walking past it whenever I went to the food court and dining area — it stopped me every time and I would pause to test out the drawers or just imagine it in my own sewing dungeon, er — studio. I would want the one in the white finish……You can find more info HERE.

Mary Ellen’s Best Press

Yippee! Mary Ellen’s Best Press Spray has a new scent — Lemon Mist! I’ve been using the Best Press starch alternative spray for a long time now and I am thrilled that they finally have a lemon scent. I was very excited to have scored a sample at Market so I can test it out, but I already know I am going to love the Lemon Mist scent. It will most likely be my new favorite. You can find it HERE.

Well, folks, I hope my favorite finds will inspire you — they have certainly inspired me! Now I’m adding everything to my quilter’s holiday wish list. Sigh…..do you think that cabinet will fit down the chimney????

That’s it for me this week. Take care and travel safe this coming week if you are heading somewhere to celebrate Thanksgiving. And while football is playing after Thanksgiving dinner, maybe you can sneak away and read all about my recent visit to Ohio Amish country for my Mom’s birthday.

Until then —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @ VRD

quilt festival · quilt market · Rose Cards · villa rosa designs

NEW November VRD Rose Card Patterns and 50 Years of International Quilt Festival

rosecards2 Comments

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

Just got home from International Quilt Market and Festival in Houston. Texas was a very welcoming and friendly place, like always. I didn’t get to many places as it was primarily a work trip, but I did make it to Phoenicia. Unfortunately, I never made it to Guadalajara’s for lunch with my quilty pals, Cathey and Leslie – maybe next year.

I am deliriously happy to be writing this post on my trusty desk top computer instead of the laptop I took with me to Houston, which fought me every step of the way. What a relief to type and actually see the words show up on on the screen one at a time instead of me typing and waiting and waiting some more before my words actually made it it onto the screen.

It’s always great to get home after being away for a while. You should have seen my pup, Bailly, when I walked in the front door. She was so excited she could hardly contain herself – her little backside was wiggling like crazy and her tail was doing circles! There’s just something so incredibly special to come home to a furry pal, even if you were only gone a few hours. The cats were also happy to see me and showed me in their much more reserved cat-like ways. It feels so good to be loved like that. Of course, I brought goodies home for each of the fur babies from my trip! And Bailly is wild about her new yellow squeaky dog shaped like a banana. LOL!

Before I jump into a bit about Quilt Festival, I want to share the NEW November Rose Card patterns with you, which came out while we were at Festival last week.

NEW November Rose Card Quilt Patterns

We’ve got 5 new throw-sized quilt patterns for this month from 5 different VRD designers.

Get your set of 5 print patterns HERE

I’m excited to finally show my new throw-sized pattern, 2M Junior. If you loved the original 2M pattern (see below), but maybe didn’t want to make a large bed-sized quilt, then 2M Junior is just for you. And I’m absolutely thrilled to tell you that I used Pat’s new Riley Blake fabric collection, Bedazzled, in 2M Junior. Bedazzled is shipping to shops in December and you’ll be able to pre-order it soon.

Get your 2M Junior print pattern HERE or your digital pattern HERE

Get your original 2M print pattern HERE or your digital pattern HERE

And we can’t forget this month’s table runner, Bespoke, and our new snack mat, Little ‘Shroom.

Get your print Bespoke HERE and your digital Bespoke HERE

Get your print Little ‘Shroom HERE or your digital Little ‘Shroom HERE

With 7 brand-new November patterns to choose from, which one will you make first???

International Quilt Festival’s 50th Anniversary

This year, 2024, International Quilt Festival celebrated its 50th Anniversary! How amazing is that??? There were something like 1100 quilts on display!

I spent some time exploring the quilt displays, but I definitely did not see all of the quilts this year. I did take lots of photos to share with you, however!

There was a special Red, White, and Blue quilt display hung from the ceiling in the quilt area. Oh my goodness! It was mind-boggling! So many gorgeous quilts from traditional to modern from small to large all in red, white, and blue.

Let me share some photos I took, although they cannot do justice to the display at all, but I hope you will enjoy them.

Inside the circle of quilts hanging from the ceiling was a mini quilt display.

There were also more red, white, and blue quilts all the way around the ceiling display, too. Here are 2 of my favorites by the amazing Combat Quilter, Andrew Lee.

Well, I guess that’s it for me today. I hope you enjoyed a peek at some of the quilts on display. Stop back next Thursday so I can tell you more about my trip to Houston for Quilt Market and Festival. And, yes, there will be more quilts, I promise.

Until then —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD

quilt festival · quilt market · villa rosa designs

Quilt Market Bound!

rosecards3 Comments

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

Today is the day! As you read this post, I’m on my way to Houston, Texas for International Quilt Market AND I am staying for Festival again this year. I wasn’t originally planning to do that, but things worked out and I am able to stay for Festival now. Yay!

I definitely have to thank my family for taking care of my Bailly pup, my kitty boy Griffy and our kitty girl Pip. I know they’ll be spoiled and loved, but I will miss them a lot while I’m down in Houston. It will be fun to come home again to my Bailly’s tail wagging a million miles a minute! And I can’t forget my Griffy’s show of affection when he gives me random whole body rubs against my legs. And Pip — what can I say? – she is very quiet and observant of everything around her, but she’ll walk right over to tell me she’s glad I’m home. If you’re a pet parent, I know you’ll understand exactly what I’m talking about.

If you are planning to attend Market and/or Festival, I hope you’ll find time to stop over at the Villa Rosa Designs booth and say hello! Pat, Molly, Heidi, and I would love to meet all of you in person! 🙂

The VRD booth during Festival 2023.

I’m sitting here, smiling, thinking about last year’s Market and Festival. My friend, Cathey of Cathey Marie Designs, and I met for lunch during Market — we hadn’t seen each other since Market 2022. This year, our friend and fellow designer Leslie, is attending Market with Cathey. My fingers are crossed that we might be able to break away for a little lunch at Guadalajara, our favorite Mexican restaurant in downtown Houston, but we’ll see….

Last year my pal, Gaynel, and her sister Evie, went to Quilt Festival, so I was able to have a quick lunch with Gaynel — giant Texas-sized potatoes, of course! A long way to travel for lunch! LOL!

Here I am, showing off my yummy potato smothered in cheese, sour cream, and bacon!

Did I mention the food??? LOL! One of my favorite things to do when I travel (which is actually not very often) is to try different restaurants. Who wants to spend time cooking when you can spend time eating????

Of course, while I do get to have a bit of fun, I am also working at the VRD booth for Market and I get to help at the booth during Festival, too. Market and Festival are such a whirlwind of creativity, inspiration, and exhaustion.

One of the biggest features of both Market and Festival is the HUGE amount of quilts on display in the exhibit area. Most of the time, I don’t get to see all of the quilts, but I sure do try to slip a little quilt-gazing into my trip. Last year, there was a wonderful antique quilt display and I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time to participate in a quilt walk through the exhibit. what fun! There were quilts from the 1800’s right up to the 1980’s! Some of my favorites were the unique and original African American quilts. I am in awe of the art these women created with what they had. I really could have stood there for hours just looking at the fabrics and how everything fits together!

I was also totally mesmerized and amazed at how quilters in the 1960’s and 1970’s turned double knit polyester into gorgeous works of quilted art. I have always been fascinated with the idea of double knit quilts and I am very lucky to have a couple examples now — sweet little doll quilts. I will definitely have to share some of my sweet and wonky doll quilts sometime on the blog, won’t I?

What else is there to see at Market and Festival? Why, the people, of course! Lots and lots of folks from all over the world — it isn’t called International Quilt Festival for nothin’! I just love to hear all the happy and excited voices in different languages on the show floor, in booths, among the quilt exhibits, at the food court, and in the halls. The excitement and inspiration is so intense, you can almost taste it.

You might also get the chance to meet a famous quilting rock star, too. Over the years, I’ve met quite a few of my quilting heroes and they are always so gracious, even when they are mobbed by their fans.

Both Market and Festival offer a plethora of classes, too, although I rarely get the chance to pop into any classes these days. While Market Schoolhouse lectures are going on, we’re busy getting the VRD booth together for you. When it’s time for our VRD schoolhouse session, we grab the quilts and hurry upstairs. Then it’s back down to the show floor to finish setting up the booth.

If you’ve never been to Quilt Festival, I hope you’ll get the chance sometime — it’s the biggest most awesome quilt show and shopping venue! And if you are a quilting professional, I hope you get to attend Market at least once to experience all the sights and sounds of the quilt industry.

I count myself so lucky that I’ve been to Market more times than I can count and this year will be my second Festival. I’m ready — bring it on!

See you in Houston!

Until next time —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD

Just Quilty Stuff · quilt festival · quilt market · villa rosa designs

Antique/Vintage Quilts from the American Quilt Study Group Display and My Favorite Finds at Quilt Market and Quilt Festival

rosecards6 Comments

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

I’m still in Quilt Market/Festival mode and boy, have I got some goodies to show you today, including another slide show of quilts! I’d like to point out that this demonstrates how far-reaching and important Quilt Market and Festival really are — it literally takes weeks to “unpack” your brain afterwards. That can include looking through literature from companies, sifting through all your goodies, contacting new contacts, making connections about orders or new projects, and so much more. I am most definitely still decompressing from Market and Festival. Whoah! Squirrel……….

American Quilt Study Group Display

One of my favorite quilt displays at Market and Festival this year was by the American Quilt Study Group (AQSG). The display had a wonderful title — “Every Quilt Tells a Story”. It was a really interesting display with quilt examples ranging from the 1850’s up to circa 1980 — that’s one really broad stroke in quilt history! Some of my favorites on display were the double knit polyester quilts, believe it or not! I’ve always wanted to adopt a double knit quilt because the whole idea of working with such fabric always fascinated me.

As many of you know, my personal roots in quilt-making began with collecting antique and vintage textiles long before I taught myself to quilt after I graduated from college. I came to quilting through the side door, so to speak. Quilting, for me, was a perfect merger of my love of the antique and vintage as well as history and textiles. And OH THE STORIES our quilts could tell us….

So, this display was very near and dear to my heart. I even managed to be in the right place at the right time and participated in a quilt walk talk. It was great to hear more about each quilt as well as the collector/owner.

And while I was there, I even joined AQSG! I’m excited to learn more about my own textile collection and to see how I can contribute to the AQSG existing body of knowledge. You can learn more about the AQSG (and how to join) HERE.

Without further ado, here’s the slide show showing the quilts I was particularly drawn to. Again, please note the quilt information is the slide after the quilt.

Pretty awesome, huh? Which one was your favorite?

Speaking of antique and vintage quilt stuff, let me show you some of my favorite finds at Market and Festival.

Favorite Market and Festival Finds

Probably my most special find was Harold the antique quilt with the opened feed bags for a backing. Did you miss my story, “The Quilt that Followed Me Home”? You can find it HERE.

Then there’s the HUGE collection of antique and vintage Orphan blocks I found at 3 different antique quilt vendors — Quilts From Mulberry Lane, Tenny Roche Vintage, and Legacy Quilts . I can’t wait to play around with these….

Speaking of antique and vintage quilty stuff, I also found this incredible piece of Hawaiian quilting at the Lavender and Old Lace Co booth. It is hand-appliqued and completely hand-quilted. Maybe it was going to be a pillow square? Who knows? There probably isn’t any way to find out how old it is because it’s a solid red on muslin, but it definitely isn’t recent. It had a wide red silky blanket binding applied with some kind of fusible product all around the edges. The blanket binding pulled right off, but it did leave some red staining here and there. Ho hum, just part of the piece’s history. I plan to square it up, bind it in a vintage red fabric, add a hanging sleeve on the back, and a label. I don’t know the name of the block yet, but I will enjoy doing some research into Hawaiian quilting.

Of course, I had loads of fun shopping in our very own VRD booth! Being that I live in PA and the VRD quilt shop is located in CA, it was kind of like visiting the shop (at least a mini mobile one). I grabbed a couple kits I’d had my eye on — Pascali and Picture Perfect.

It’s your lucky day, too — we still have kits left for both patterns!

Pascali in True Blue HERE

Or maybe you’d just like the Pascali pattern? Physical Pascali HERE, Digital Pascali HERE

Picture Perfect in California Parks (the one I bought) HERE

Picture Perfect in Dwell in Possibilities HERE

Or maybe you’d just like Molly’s Picture Perfect pattern? Physical Picture Perfect HERE, digital Picture Perfect HERE

I spent time during Festival helping Molly and Heidi to keep the half and full yards of fabric organized in the plastic bins. I had never seen (or felt) the Charley Harper fabrics up close and personal before now. The fabric was so smooth and silky and the images so colorful and crisp!

Of course, after handling it for days, I just had to take my first Charley Harper fabrics home. It was hard to decide which fabrics to start with, so I ended up putting together a winter collection, a fall collection (’tis the seasons…..), and the last photo shows 2 random prints I fell in love with. It was really fun to mix and match the prints from different collections together. I am looking forward to creating a new VRD pattern (you know, in the next 50 years or so) using my Charley Harper fabric finds.

Pat, our VRD Rose Queen, has used Charley Harper fabrics in a couple patterns already, Newsflash and Jolie. Of course, the kits are long gone, but you can still get the patterns — physical Newsflash HERE or digital Newsflash HERE and physical Jolie HERE or digital Jolie HERE. And you can shop our VRD Charley Harper fabrics HERE.

Charm Squares and Fat Quarters, oh my!!! What more can I say???

PSST! The fat quarter rolls were from our VRD booth, you can see our VRD bundles HERE.

Have you ever been to Phoenicia in Houston? It’s an amazing specialty grocery store through the park and a block away from the Convention Center. Totally worth the short walk. Specialty grocery just doesn’t do the store justice — it’s a restaurant, coffee shop, bakery, meat and fish store, fresh foods, international foods, hot foods, cold foods, salad bar, fresh fruits/vegs, wine and beer, gifts, and so much more. I haven’t been here since 2019. I had so much fun wandering the aisles upstairs and down. I found some great goodies to take home for my family and even some special stuff for myself. I LOVE Turkish Delight. Have you ever tried it? I go all the way to Houston to find my favorite Koska brand from Turkey. And there were even some new flavor combinations, too!

Here I am sitting out front at one of the little bistro tables enjoying a S’mores cappuccino ( light on the coffee, heavy on the chocolate) and an amazing chocolate eclair. Yum!

Speaking of food, I get really excited to go to Quilt Market (and now Festival) just to have one of the most amazing Texas-sized stuffed baked potatoes. Yep, you heard me right — baked potatoes. I’m talking butter, brisket, cheese, BBQ sauce, sour cream, real bacon, and chives. Yum yum yummy! You can’t beat it for the most filling lunch ever. It’s not cheap, but it’s oh so satisfying.

Here I am digging into my tater……

So grab your own ginormous potato next year at the Food Court and tell ’em Tricia from PA sent you. I think they should keep a world map and a USA map on display (and color in the countries/states) to show all the places where potato lovers come from. Just sayin’……..

When I went to Houston, I took along a little hand-sewing wool felt project for the airport and on the plane. Of course, while I was taking everything in, I was drawn into the wool booth, Yellow Creek Quilt Designs — blame it on the Gnome piece that reached out and grabbed me. Ha Ha! Of course, I bought the pattern for the Gnomes well as a few others. And at another booth, Penny Lane Primitives, I bought this adorable snowman candle mat kit.

Well, I guess that’s it for me this week. I’ve got to get back to work on our upcoming 12 Quilts of Christmas collection! Stay warm and get quilting! And get some rest so you’re ready to first eat turkey next week then shop until you literally drop.

See you next Thursday on Thanksgiving —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD