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

April 27, 2023April 26, 2023 rosecards1 Comment

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

Quilting Partners · Rose Cards · villa rosa designs

NEW March 2023 Villa Rosa Designs Rose Card Patterns and Charley Harper Fabrics

March 9, 2023March 8, 2023 rosecards1 Comment

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

The sun is shining right now, melting the unexpected snow we got overnight, but at least it was only a couple inches and it should be gone tomorrow. Here in PA, we’ve had a relatively mild winter so far this year, but in California, where the Villa Rosa Designs quilt shop is located and where owner/Rose Queen, Pat, lives, there has been loads of snow and rain!

BRRRRRR!

The VRD shop was closed for more than a week! No electricity — no Internet! One of the shop workers couldn’t even get into her own home! It’s been that bad, really! Maybe you’ve been affected by all the bad weather out there, too.

Fabric orders are backed up, so please be patient as everything gets up and running again at the VRD shop and everyone is working as quickly as they can to get your orders put together. Thanks for your understanding.

NEW VRD March 2023 Rose Cards

On a happy note, it’s my favorite Thursday of the month — you know the one following the first Friday when the new VRD cards are released. Yay!

Drum roll, please!

Wow! Lot’s of fun, huh? You can order the set of 5 March Rose Cards HERE. (Psst — cards are not shipped from the shop in CA, so Rose Card orders are not affected by the storms on the West Coast).

And here is March’s new table runner pattern, Lucky!

I featured the Luck of the Gnomes fabric collection from Benartex, one of our newest Quilting Partners, in this runner. You can take a look at the whole collection HERE .

Check with your local shops as it should already be available.

By the way, you can get the Lucky pattern HERE.

Grab your March patterns if you don’t have them yet and get quilting — what are you waiting for???

Maybe you need some new fabric inspiration? Hmmmmm……???

Charley Harper Fabrics

Pat mentioned to me the other day when we were discussing QuiltCon, that the Charley Harper fabrics had been received well. And I was like — what are Charley Harper fabrics??!!?? I do so dislike not knowing something so I immediately went to the shop website, www.villarosadesigns.com, to see what “Charley Harper” was. And — WOW — did I get excited by what I saw.

Here are some of my favorites:

Aren’t they wonderful? Edgy and mid century modern? Rich saturated colors? Simple yet complex at the same time???

After perusing the Charley Harper fabrics available at VRD, I just had to look up some more information. Who or what was Charley Harper?

I discovered that the Charley Harper Art Studio has a website: www.charleyharperartstudio.com. So I checked it out.

Charley Harper was born in West Virginia where he grew up on a farm. He attended the Cincinnati Art Academy and even taught there for years. He was considered a “modernist wildlife artist” and he died in 2007.

Photo from http://www.charleyharperartstudio.com

I asked myself how I had never heard of Charley Harper. I did not take any art classes in college or grad school, but I find it sad I never stumbled upon this amazing artist.

How fortunate for us that Birch Fabrics has brought Charley Harper’s incredible artwork to the quilting community.

Don’t forget to check out the Charley Harper fabrics available at Villa Rosa Designs HERE! Stock up now on these amazingly beautiful designs because they are sure to go fast. Just sayin’…….

Well, that’s it for me this week!

Take care and I’ll see you next Thursday!

Until then —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @ VRD

Blog Hop 2023 · Quilting Partners · Rose Cards · villa rosa designs

Villa Rosa Designs Blog Hop Update

February 2, 2023February 1, 2023 rosecards6 Comments

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

First, I have to wish you a Happy Groundhog Day! My fingers are crossed for an early spring this year.

WOW! What an AWESOME Blog Hop we just had, wasn’t it?

Right now I am in the midst of contacting all the winners, so please be patient as I work through each blogger’s list. There are a TON of prizes to award and this part is actually taking longer than I’d anticipated. Not a bad thing, really……..

What was your favorite part of the Hop? Mine was seeing all of the finished projects from each bloggers — each project just blew my mind! I was thrilled to see how the bloggers interpreted the patterns. Some even changed sizes or layouts to make the patterns their own. More than one blogger dove into their stash to create their quilts.

I am sew ready to start a new project, but I can’t seem to get away from the computer right now. Oh well…..I can dream.

I wanted to post the link to the Blog Hop Rose Card Collection one more time in case you wanted to get a set before they’re gone. You can get your set HERE.

ENTHUSIASTIC APPLAUSE goes out to all of our blogger participants. They are a very talented and creative group of folks. I hope you enjoyed getting to know them a little bit better.

From Bolt to Beauty
Kathleen McMusing
Jaftex Companies

Pieceful Thoughts
Little Penguin Quilts

Quilt with a View
MMM Quilts

Cheryl’s Teapots 2 Quilting
Devoted Quilter
Quilts of Valor Foundation

Needle and Foot
Am I Shouting Yet?
Electric Quilt

The Crafty Quilter
Jo’s Country Junction
Keepsake Quilting
Stitchin At Home

I have to thank our very generous sponsors one more time — they made the Blog Hop extra fun with so many chances for hoppers to win!

Well, I’d better get back to contacting prize winners! It might just be you!

See you next Thursday! Here’s hoping I’ve got all the prizes given away by then. LOL!

Until then —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @ VRD

Blog Hop 2023 · Quilting Partners · Rose Cards · villa rosa designs

Welcome to the First Ever Villa Rosa Designs Fast & Fun Blog Hop!

January 19, 2023January 23, 2023 rosecards488 Comments

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

I am SEW very excited that you are here!

Welcome!

I hope you are ready to come along on a fun quilting adventure, otherwise known as our very first Blog Hop here at Villa Rosa Designs. We’re calling it the Fast & Fun Blog Hop, and I know you’ll understand why very soon.

We have a super group of bloggers ready to share some awesome quilts made with Villa Rosa Designs (VRD) Rose Card patterns.

In fact, we’ve put together a special collection of 5 patterns just for this Blog Hop!

Here are the 5 patterns in the 2023 Fast & Fun Blog Hop Collection:

Lucky you! You can purchase a set of these 5 patterns HERE. Or visit our website HERE for even more great Rose Card patterns (over 500 of them).

Or you might just win a set. READ ON to find out how!

Let me tell you a little bit about Villa Rosa Designs in case this is the first time you’re visiting our blog home, Villa Rosa Quilts.

What is Villa Rosa Designs?

Villa Rosa Designs is the brainchild of owner and Rose Queen, Pat Fryer. Pat wanted to create Fast & Fun, affordable, and high quality patterns for quilters featuring precuts like 1/2 yards, fat quarters, 10″ squares, 5″ squares, 2 1/2″ strips, fat eighths, and fat sixths as well as other fabric cuts like panels and novelty fabrics.

Since its launch in 2010, VRD has become much more than a handful of easy-to-make quilt patterns. Rose Cards, Villa Rosa’s signature postcard-sized patterns, combine great design with simple packaging and an attractive price, making Rose Cards one of the best selling pattern brands on the market today! And since 2010, Villa Rosa Designs has grown to include a collection of very talented designers, each with their own unique style.

Now that you know a little bit about Villa Rosa Designs, let me tell you about the VRD Fast & Fun Blog Hop!

Let’s HOP!

We’ve teamed up with an awesome group of bloggers, who have accepted the challenge to create 1 of the 5 Blog Hop Rose Card patterns above. To see which blogger has created which pattern, you’ll have to visit EACH blogger during the blog hop which runs from today, January 19th through next Thursday, January 26th.

Here is our Blog Hop Schedule:

01/19/23 Thursday	Villa Rosa Quilts — Today, where it all begins
01/20/23 Friday	From Bolt to Beauty Kathleen McMusing Jaftex Companies
01/21/23 Saturday	Pieceful Thoughts Little Penguin Quilts
01/22/23 Sunday	Quilt with a View mmmquilts
01/23/23 Monday	Cheryl’s Teapots 2 Quilting Devoted Quilter Quilts of Valor Foundation
01/24/23 Tuesday	Needle and Foot Am I Shouting Yet? Electric Quilt
01/25/23 Wednesday	The Crafty Quilter Jo’s Country Junction Keepsake Quilting Stitchin At Home
01/26/23 Thursday	Villa Rosa Quilts — Blog Hop Wrap Up

Did I Mention Blog Hop PRIZES and GIVEAWAYS???

You will have the opportunity to win lots of great prizes during the blog hop! All you have to do is hop from blog to blog every day from January 19th through January 26th to see which quilt each blogger made and to find out how to register for prizes on each blog.

Registration for prizes will close on Sunday, January 29th.

Before I jump into all the cool prizes you might win, I want to take a moment to thank all of our incredible sponsors, who donated all kinds of quilting goodies for you to win. Thank you Sponsors! Without you, this Blog Hop wouldn’t be happening.

Now for the Blog Hop Prizes — YAY!

Here’s the Important Stuff you need to know:

Everyone is eligible to win prizes. Please note that winners outside the USA will receive a digital set of the 2023 Blog Hop Rose Card pattern collection.

There are several opportunities for you to win prizes during the blog hop:

Individual bloggers may be hosting giveaways on their blogs for you to win. Please visit these bloggers to find out about their giveaways and how to register.
Villa Rosa Designs is giving away a 2023 Blog Hop Rose Card pattern collection on each participating blog.
Sponsor prizes have been donated by our lovely Sponsors, above, and even from some of the bloggers, too! These prizes are divided into 2 different categories —
- Grand Prize Boxes (of which there are 2) are filled with tons of quilting goodies including books, fabric, precuts, notions, patterns, and more.
- Individual Prizes (each blogger will select 3 winners on their blog) which may be books, patterns, fat quarter bundles, 5″ squares, 2 1/2″ strips, 10″ squares, notions, and more.

WOW! That’s a lot of prizes if you do the math.

Please note that to leave a comment on this blog to be registered for prizes, you will need to click on the comments link just under the blog title at the top of the blog. After you click the “comments” link, you need to scroll all the way down to the bottom of “comments” in order to find the space to leave your own comment. Be patient — there are a lot of comments to go through until you get to the bottom. Thank you.

Here are some photos of the prizes to get you motivated! LOL!

Photo 1 (left) shows a Grand Prize Box. Oh my — look at all those quilting goodies!

Photos 2 and 3 (center and right) show an assortment of Individual Prizes just waiting for you to win — books, 10″ squares, 2 1/2″ strips, 5″ squares, fat quarter bundles, half yard bundles, notions, and patterns.

Sooooo, how do you win?

Hop from blog to blog from January 19th through January 26th and register for prizes at each blog. The more participating blogs you visit and register at, the more chances you have to win prizes! It’s really that easy, I promise.

Winners will be selected randomly. Each blogger will select 2 names to go into the Grand Prize Box drawing and 2 winners will be selected randomly to win. Each blogger will also randomly select 3 winners for the Sponsored Individual Prizes.

Prize registration closes Sunday, January 29, 2023.

Winners will be announced the beginning of February 2023. Prizes will be shipped in February 2023.

No purchase is necessary to participate in the Blog Hop or to win prizes.

Villa Rosa Designs Thursday January 19th Giveaway

Thank you for reading all the way through this post! As a reward, you can register to win QUILTS!

Here’s your chance to win one of these 3 Quilts made from VRD Rose Card patterns. These 3 quilts are completely finished — machine quilted and bound — and ready for you to enjoy. Awesome!!!

Quilt 1 (left) is Claudette and is 57″x75″.

Quilt 2 (center) is Eden Rose and is 36″ x 47″.

Quilt 3 (left) is Honor and it is 57″x76″.

Here’s how to win one of these quilts:

You have up to 3 chances to win the quilts listed above on this blog.

1. Leave a comment on this post and tell us what your favorite Rose Card pattern is (or one you would like to make if you’re new to VRD).

2. Become a blog follower/subscriber and leave a comment on this post telling us that you are a blog follower/subscriber.

3. Join our VRD Facebook group and leave a comment on this post telling us you joined our FB group.

Ready! Set! GO!

Don’t forget — registration for prizes closes Sunday, January 29th.

Winners will be selected randomly on Monday/Tuesday January 30th/31st.

PLEASE MAKE SURE TO INCLUDE AN EMAIL ADDRESS SO WE CAN CONTACT YOU IF YOU ARE A WINNER!

Well, Quilty Friends, I thank you for reading the whole way to the end.

Good luck to each of you and please enjoy the Blog Hop!

See you next Thursday, right here!

Until then —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD

Blog Hop 2023 · Quilting Partners · villa rosa designs

Villa Rosa Designs Fast & Fun Blog Hop January 19-26

January 5, 2023January 23, 2023 rosecards6 Comments

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

I am SEW EXCITED to tell you all about our very first Villa Rosa Designs Blog Hop. We’re calling it the “Fast & Fun” Blog Hop because as most of you already know, Villa Rosa Designs Rose Cards are fast and fun for real!

What is a Blog Hop?

It’s a group of bloggers who write about a specific topic or theme. The participating bloggers write and share their posts during a specific period of time. During the blog hop, people can read the posts each day of the hop and register for prizes. YES! I said prizes!

Have you ever gone on a Quilt Shop Hop? It’s a lot like that except you hop from blog to blog from the comfort of your home instead of from store to store.

Our blog hop will be January 19-26, 2023 and we have a great group of participants who will be telling you all about their Fast & Fun VRD projects. We will also be offering a special Blog Hop Rose Card Collection for sale on the website and of course, we will be giving away sets of these 5 awesome Rose Card patterns, too.

Sew…..mark your calendars for January 19-26 and tell all of your quilting pals!

Here are our participating blog partners for the blog hop as of today:

http://frombolttobeauty.blogspot.com

https://www.kathleenmcmusing.com

https://scottfortunoff.com

https://www.piecefulthoughts.com

https://littlepenguinquilts.blogspot.com

https://www.keepsakequilting.com/blogs/keepsake-quilting-blog

https://quiltwithaview.blogspot.com

https://www.mmmquilts.com

https://cherylsteapots2quilting.blogspot.com

https://www.devotedquilter.com

https://www.qovf.org

https://needleandfoot.com

https://shout4joy-shouting.blogspot.com

https://doyoueq.com/blog

https://thecraftyquilter.com

http://www.joscountryjunction.com

https://www.stitchinathome.com

You might want to take a little time and explore our blog partners so you’re all set for the Blog Hop and can register for prizes on all participating blogs.

Speaking of registering for prizes, as of today, we have the following companies and businesses sponsoring our Blog Hop:

Many of our blog partners will be sponsoring their own giveaways on their blogs, too!

The blog hop is sounding more and more fun, isn’t it? Don’t forget to mark your calendars for January 19-26. The Blog Hop will kick off here at our Villa Rosa Designs blog,Villa Rosa Quilts, on January 19th!

We’ll have more information next week, so stop back then!

Until next Thursday —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD

Panel Quilts · Quilting Partners · Rose Cards · Tips and Tricks · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

VRD Hillside Charm Quilt Tutorial and the NEW November Rose Card Patterns

November 10, 2022November 9, 2022 rosecards1 Comment

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

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!

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:

You can buy the Baskets pattern HERE.

As always, shipping is free.

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’….

Until next Thursday —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD

Quilting Partners · Rose Cards · villa rosa designs

Quilting Partners

August 4, 2022August 3, 2022 rosecards2 Comments

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed on the right side of the blog that we’ve been adding links under our new “Quilting Partners” heading.

Here at VRD, we’ve been working hard to make connections with other industry professionals, organizations, and companies and this “Quilting Partners” section is a growing list of professionals, organizations, and companies we are working with.

Today, I thought I’d talk a little bit about our quilting partners (in crime — LOL!).

As you know, our Rose Card patterns really rock — besides being beginner friendly, they feature easy piecing and often popular precuts. Besides, they are fun projects with an attractive price. And they are not only for beginners, either — more advanced quilters find them just as appealing and addicting! A lot of quilters use our patterns for their charity quilts as well as gift-giving, and even projects for themselves (once in a while, anyway). Thanks to the creative genius behind Villa Rosa Designs — our very own Rose Queen, Pat Fryer — Rose Cards are some of the most popular quilt patterns out there!

That being said, fabric companies as well as other quilting businesses are starting to jump aboard our Rose Card party train.

Hoffman California International Fabrics

I’ve personally been having lots of fun with Hoffman recently, creating images featuring their new fabric collections in our Rose Card patterns! Check out the PDF below. This PDF shows quilt shops how to kit up the three patterns, Hillside Charm, Addison, and Remember Me using the Hoffman digital collection, Wading with Water Lilies. This a great help for quilt shops because it even tells you the level, how long a class would be, where to purchase the patterns, as well as what to put into kits. You can find this downloadable PDF and more on the Hoffman website.

This was definitely one of my favorite Hoffman collections to play with. Wading with Water Lilies will be available in quilt shops this fall, so you can be sure that there will be kits out there at your favorite quilt shops as well as yardage. Don’t forget to grab yours!

wading-with-water-lilies Download

Buy the patterns here:

Hillside Charm Pattern

Addison Pattern

Remember Me Pattern

Keepsake Quilting

Who doesn’t love the gorgeous fabrics, great supplies, and fun notions available at Keepsake Quilting??? Well, I have secret to share with you. SHHHHH! Don’t tell anyone……. Oh all right, go ahead and share, we don’t mind.

Keepsake offers lots of fun Fabric Collections of the Month Clubs. Have you ever tried any of their awesome fat quarter clubs???? They have many to choose from —

Beautiful Basic Medley of the Month

Hoffman Medley of the Month

Standard Club Medley of the Month

Bali Medley of the Month

19th Century Medley of the Month

Circa 1930 Medley of the Month

Moda Medley of the Month

Kaufman Medley of the Month

With all of these awesome Fat Quarter Clubs, there really is something for every quilter out there! And what fun it is to receive a surprise fabric collection in the mail every month (I call them squishies). Now the cool thing is that several of the above medleys include a free pattern. Yep, you guessed it — you might find a Villa Rosa Rose Card tucked into your fat quarter medley of the month.

FreeSpirit Fabrics

Are you familiar with Tim Holtz the designer? You’ll find him in the scrapbooking and papercrafting aisle of your local craft store, but you’ll also find him in your favorite quilt shop, too. His style is sew unique!

Here’s a PDF of my Rose Card pattern 2M featuring 3 different Tim Holtz fabric collections. Not only does it show you the gorgeous moody fabrics in the quilt design, it also shows fabric requirements for the quilt and where to buy the pattern, making it a snap for quilt shops to kit up the pattern and fabrics.

2mquilt_timholtz Download

Here are some more Rose Cards featured on FreeSpirit’s website:

Buy the patterns here:

2M Pattern

Eazy Piezy Pattern

Baby Goose Pattern

Random Shuffle Pattern

Clothworks

Clothworks is already a big fan of Villa Rosa Rose Cards. You can find lots of Rose Card patterns on their website showcasing their gorgeous fabric collections.

Here’s an example from their Sleepy Time collection featuring the Journey Rose Card pattern. I love how they show the pattern front in the center between the 2 quilt samples. Again, this download shows a quilt shop how to kit up the pattern and the fabrics.

You can check out more of our Villa Rosa patterns at Clothworks HERE.

Buy the pattern here:

Journey Pattern

These are just some of the wonderful companies we are working with right now. Since we are making new connections all the time, I bet there will more Quilting Partners soon. So stay tuned (and don’t forget to check our Quilting Partners list on the blog for updates).

Until next Thursday —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD

Quilting Partners · Tips and Tricks · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

Let’s Design a Quilt Together — A Peek into My Quilt Design Process

June 16, 2022June 15, 2022 rosecards2 Comments

Hello Quilty Friends!

It’s Thursday again! Here’s hoping your week has been going well. Mine has been good and fast — just the way I love my quilt projects to be! LOL!

A lot of people ask about my design process so I thought I’d tell you a little bit about my process. Keep in mind that all designers have their own way of doing things and this post is only about my process.

Sometimes it’s like I eat, sleep, and breathe quilts and quilting! Not only do I read/flip through quilt books and magazines, I also look online for new trends. I talk to my quilt friends about what they are doing. I teach a quilt class once a month. I design patterns, write instructions, make quilts, take photos of quilts. I look at and get inspired by fabric. I jot down ideas and even do rough sketches of quilt blocks (which I promptly lose most of the time). I have even been known to wake up in the middle of the night with a new idea for a quilt. Whew!

Inspiration comes in a lot of different forms for me. Sometimes I see a fabric or collection and an idea pops into my head. Sometimes I start with a favorite quilt block and a quilt develops out of that. I have quite a few quilt block references that I use for ideas. Here are a few books in my library:

The first 2 books are by Barbara Brackman. The one on the left is the first edition of the 2nd book and is out of print and can be hard to find. I have both of them and love them both. The newer edition has even more blocks in it than the first edition! Barbara Brackman is one of the most renowned quilt historians of our time! You can visit her blog, Material Culture, HERE.

I also have Barbara Brackman’s software program, Blockbase, which works with Electric Quilt. You can find Blockbase HERE.

The third book, 5500 Quilt Block Designs, is by well-known quilter and author Maggie Malone. I have only known about this book since 2021 when a friend of mine showed it to me and I was so impressed, I had to grab a copy for myself. This book is out of print so it can be harder to find as well.

I have talked about Electric Quilt software before in an earlier post, but I want to mention it again here because I really couldn’t design quilts without it! Some designers sit down with a ruler and graph paper to draft quilt patterns, but I am an Electric Quilt user because it makes designing quilts a lot easier for me. You can find Electric Quilt 8 (EQ8) software HERE.

If you are interested in designing your own quilts, I totally recommend EQ8 if you’re into computers. If you’re not into computers, graph paper and a ruler might be your new BFF.

Once I get an idea, it’s time to play — which usually means I head to my computer and EQ8. I play with blocks, try different color combinations, download different fabrics to try all before I actually make anything at all. Some designers start by making the project and then work backwards to create the pattern and instructions. I do my designing on my computer and then make the project once I know what I am going to do. At least this is what I do probably 99% of the time. That’s one of the fun things about being a designer — I can try different ways of doing things. They don’t always work out for me, but that’s okay, there’s always another way to try.

Let me show you an example of my design process. For this example, I’m gong to start with my favorite quilt block, the Shoo Fly block.

When I am starting with the quilt design before I select the actual fabrics, I usually design in red, black, white, and grey. I don’t know exactly why I do that, but I think it probably has to do with the high contrast so I get a good sense of the pattern before I add actual fabric.

So, let’s make a wall quilt using 4 Shoo Fly blocks. It will look something like this:

Hmmmmm. This doesn’t really excite me. How about you? Let’s tweak it a little bit and see what happens next. We’ll add a bit more color, too.

Okay, this is better, don’t you think? By adding a sashing between the blocks, I was able to put another Shoo Fly block in the center. I changed the colors of the larger blocks to black and grey with the smaller center Shoo Fly block in red. It definitely has a lot more interest, doesn’t it? But it’s not quite there. Let’s tweak it a little bit more, shall we?

Now we’re getting somewhere! I got rid of the grey and went with plain black. Then I added 2 narrow blocky borders so I could continue to build out with more Shoo Fly blocks. Now I think we need a border.

Yay! A finished quilt design. I added an outer plain black border and a red binding. Pretty zippy, isn’t it? Now we’re gong to add some real fabric to the design.

Here are 3 different versions of our Shoo Fly quilt using Hoffman’s Paisley in Love batik collection. Of the 3, I think the last one with the white background is my favorite. I like the contrast, but I think I need to do a little more tweaking with the design, so back to the drawing board (or EQ8).

What are your thoughts? How would you improve this design? Any ideas?

Well, I hope you enjoyed a peek into my design process. Who knows? You might see this design as a VRD Rose Card some day.

Until next Thursday —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD

Where can I purchase the panel in your tutorial? Has writing: One Nation Under God America Old Glory HONOR Etc.

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Hey Kathleen! Me too!

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