Category: Rose Cards

Rose Cards · Tips and Tricks · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

VRD Discovery Quilt Tutorial and 8 Tips for Photographing Your Quilts

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Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

Do you have any big plans for Labor Day weekend, the unofficial end to summer? I don’t, I’m just hoping to get a little sewing in. LOL! For me, sewing and quilting are a vacation. Of course, I just had my lovely visit to Colton’s Point last week (if you missed my blog post about Colton’s Point, you can find it HERE) and I’m still feeling the positive vibes from my trip which is why I just want to sew, sew, sew.

Last week I promised you one final Summer Quilt Tutorial, so read on. After the tutorial, let me share some tips for photographing your own quilts.

VRD Discovery Quilt Tutorial

I’ve been wanting to make Discovery for a long time now, but I just haven’t picked out my fabrics and made it yet So, when I found these adorable fall fat quarters, I couldn’t resist — Discovery it was. In fact, I gave a set of these cute fat quarters to each of my friends, Cathey and Leslie, along with the the Discovery pattern and chocolate, of course. I was hoping they might be inspired to make their Discovery quilts, too, but alas, Cathey and Leslie each had their own projects to work on.

I have found the Discovery pattern really lends itself to novelties and large print fabrics. I’ll bet you have large prints as well as novelties that you have no idea what to do with and you just don’t want to cut them up, losing the fabric design. I feel your pain. I have tons of these fabrics lurking amongst my overloaded shelves, as well. But we are in luck because the Discovery patterns welcomes these hard-to-please novelties and large prints.

If you haven’t added Discovery to your VRD Rose Card collection yet, you really should. It’s a very versatile size at 44×62 which can be used as a baby quilt, a large wall quilt, or even a lap quilt. If you want it bigger, simply add more borders. Did I mention that this quilt almost sews itself together? It truly is that fast!

Get your print Discovery HERE or your digital Discovery HERE.

So, let’s get started on our tutorial for today!

Here are my cute fall fabrics, as you can see most of them are novelties and several are large prints. I chose to use a light gold tonal straight out of my stash. I just LOVE LOVE LOVE the plaid and the teal forest animal print is adorable.

I challenge you to make your own Discovery quilt right out of your stash, too, and then to share it on our VRD Facebook group.

The first thing to do is decide where you want each fabric to live in the quilt. I suggest choosing your favorite for the center and working your way from there.

The second thing, of course, is to cut out all of the pieces. The cutting for this quilt is surprisingly quick with such large pieces. I do suggest you make sure your fabrics are laid out according to the pattern and that you double check the measurements before you cut. Speaking from my own experience (which I did not photograph, sorry), if you make a cutting mistake, you’ll probably have to substitute a different fabric or piece some scraps together (which I ended up doing).

You know the saying, “measurement twice and cut once”? It applies just as much to quilting as it does woodworking.

All right, moving on. Let’s sew background strips to the sides of the center square. I pressed my seams towards the background fabric.

Yep, you knew I was going to pick the teal forest animal print for the center, didn’t you?

Now sew rectangles to each side of the center unit. I pressed the seams towards the background strips.

Of course it was going to be the plaid! Was there any doubt in your mind?

Huh. I really like how this is already looking — the plaid is just too fun and the teal forest animal print is really cute.

Next let’s sew background strips to the top and bottom of the unit. Again, I pressed the seams towards the background strips.

This is going really fast, isn’t it?

I chose similar-feeling fabrics for the top and bottom rows in the hopes of balancing the quilt. Do likewise if you want, but don’t be afraid to mix things up.

Sew 3 background strips between the 4 small squares. Make one row for the top and one for the bottom of your center unit. I pressed my seams towards the background strips.

Sew a pieced square strip to the top and the other one to the bottom of the quilt center.

Then sew the pieced rows to the top/bottom of the quilt center. Of course, I pressed my seams towards the background strips.

Sew background strips to the top and bottom of the quilt center and press the seams towards the background strips.

Sew a background strip between 2 matching rectangles. I pressed my seams towards the background fabric.

Make one pieced rectangle row for the top and one for the bottom of the quilt center.

Decide which pieced rectangle row will go on the top and which one on the bottom. Then sew the pieced rectangle rows to the quilt center, pressing your seams towards the background strips.

I hardly broke a sweat sewing this together so far. How about you? Can you believe how fast the center of the quilt came together?

Now let’s add some borders. Go ahead and sew the top and bottom borders on first and press the seams towards the background strip.

Then add the side borders. You will need to piece your strips so you have the right length.

Sew the borders to the sides of your quilt and —

VOILA!

Top done! Lickety Split! Just like that!

I just love how my Discovery quilt top turned out! It’s really fun. And really cute with those whimsical fall fabrics. I’m thinking maybe a teal binding to finish it off after I quilt it. Or maybe orange? What do you think?

Here’s a photo of my Discovery quilt top down on the pier on the Potomac at Colton’s Point. It was a little breezy and my quilt top just wouldn’t stay still. If it had been a completed quilt, it probably wouldn’t have been fluttering around while I tried to take a photo. I was actually afraid to take it farther out on the pier lest the breeze catch it and I lost it in the river.

Here is one of my favorite photos again — the one I took on the picket fence in front of Cathey’s cottage.

As pretty as it is — almost a postcard — it would look even better if the quilt was finished already. Maybe the next time I go, I can recreate this photo with the finished quilt.

By no means am I a professional photographer — strictly amateur — but I have learned some things that have improved my photos over time and I am happy to share them with you because you really should be taking photos of your quilts.

Why? You might ask.

Some reasons include:

  1. Documenting your work
  2. For insurance purposes
  3. To show your work to others without hauling crates of quilts around with you
  4. For a quilt show or contest, if it’s required

And I bet you could come up with your own reasons for photographing your quilts, too.

Here are my tips. I hope they will inspire you to try your hand at photographing your own quilts if you are not already doing so.

8 Tips for Photographing Your Quilts

  1. Use natural light — I prefer taking my quilt photos outside. My indoor lighting and space are not the best, so outside it is for the most part. I will even take quilts outside in the middle of winter to take photos.
  2. Get creative with backdrops and props — sometimes I take a quilt to a different location, but mostly I utilize what is in and around my yard — trees, grass, flowers, rocks, the roof of my car, an old tractor, weathered wood porch, a railing, a fence, or whatever I can come up with.
  3. Keep it simple — limit the amount of distractions in your photo, keep the focus on your quilt.
  4. Add a little extra — I like to incorporate natural details in my photos when I can, but I still want the focus to be on my quilt.
  5. Take photos from different angles — I like to do this and then later I can chose the best one because sometimes a straight-on shot doesn’t show a quilt to its best advantage.
  6. Ask for help — Sometimes you just need an extra hand or even a pair of hands to hold up a quilt. Don’t be afraid to ask in order to avoid frustration and failure.
  7. More is better — I end up taking a lot more photos of a quilt than I will ever use, that way I can pick out my favorite(s) and delete the rest. And believe me, I delete A LOT of images.
  8. Practice — It takes a lot of practice to achieve the results you really want when photographing your quilts, so be patient with yourself and just keep practicing.

Well, that’s it for me this week. Have a wonderful and safe Labor Day weekend. Wish me luck with my sewing….

Until next time —

Sew. Laugh. Celebrate. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD

    Just Quilty Stuff · Quilt Stories · Rose Cards · villa rosa designs

    Colton’s Point, Maryland — My Quilt Retreat with Cathey and Leslie

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    Hello Quilty Friends!

    Happy Thursday to you!

    As I write this post, I am still in Colton’s Point, Maryland with 2 of my (I want to say oldest here, but I don’t mean ages, I mean the number of years we’ve known each other) quilty pals, Leslie and Cathey.

    I must confess that I am having a wonderful time here! Colton’s Point is a very special hidden treasure right on the Potomac River, it’s about 1.5 hours from Washington D.C. and a couple hours from Baltimore. Of course, we’re not here during any festivals or events, so it’s been quiet and peaceful — 2 things I’ve been craving for quite a while now. Too bad Leslie and I are only visiting Cathey and her husband, Bryon for 4 days — 4 days is barely enough time to unzip my suitcase, let alone unwind completely. Then again, not sure I could ever truly unwind completely, even if I tried — I don’t think it’s in my nature. LOL!

    It was about a 7 hour drive to get to Colton’s Point from northwestern PA. Of course, Leslie and I do not live in the same area anymore, so we met about halfway in between. My sister, Tracy, kindly drove me to meet Leslie and then we were on our way! I rode shotgun and Leslie drove. I totally could not believe her car was getting 48.3 miles per gallon on average! Wowzer!

    Here is Cathey and Bryon’s adorable cottage (it’s bigger than it looks as it is quite deep). It has a wonderful beachy vibe and is very welcoming.

    One of the coolest things about their home is that mere steps away from their cottage is Cathey’s lovely quilt studio. This is, of course, where we definitely will be spending A LOT of our time together on our little “quilt retreat.”

    Don’t you just love her barn quilt out front??? Cathey brought it all the way from PA when they moved here.

    It didn’t take the 3 of us long to settle back into sewing together, although it’s been simply ages since our last quilt retreat experience. We certainly had a lot of catching up to do!

    I know I packed too many projects to bring with me, but I wanted to be prepared. And I really wanted to do some free motion quilting — I have way too many unfinished tops, or flimsies, right now — so I brought along 3 table runners and my Whirly Bird top from last week’s summer tutorial to machine quilt. If you missed the Whirly Bird tutorial, you can find it HERE. I also brought a challenge project for the 3 of us — I think I’ll talk more about this project in next week’s post, though — I also brought several quilt kits in case I had time to do any cutting and piecing.

    Luckily, Cathey has the same model of machine as I do — a Janome 8900 — so quilting on her machine felt a lot like quilting on my machine, although no 2 machines ever feel quite the same. In fact, Cathey is the person who got me into Janome machines, when she bought her first Janome 6260, it was such a nice machine, I had to get one too. Later she upgraded to a 8900, and so did I.

    Here I am sitting on Cathey’s studio front porch, just chilling for a few minutes.
    Here is Cathey, working on cutting out some projects.
    Here is Leslie working on a second version of a quilt she designed several years ago.
    Here is the view from where I am sitting in front of Cathey’s 8900 while I machine quilting Whirly Bird.

    I think I’ve mentioned before that Cathey is a quilter/designer and is the owner of Cathey Marie Designs.

    And after a long hiatus from quilting when life happened, Leslie is getting back into quilting once again.

    And you all know little ol’ me. LOL!

    Cathey, Leslie, and I have all designed quilts for magazines, too.

    We’ve been trying to figure out when we first met and Leslie thinks it was 2007. Both Leslie and Cathey were relatively new quilters when we met on a bus trip to Chautauqua Institution in New York for Quilting Around Chautauqua. Cathey and I had met in the summer when I was seated behind her on the bus for our local Shop Hop. It was both our first Shop Hop. Those meetings led to many Shop Hops and quilting road trips, along with some quilting retreats (and staying in a cottage at Chautauqua for Quilting Around Chautauqua with our quilty pal, Mary Lee — HEY MARY LEE!) sprinkled in for good measure. But as things happen, life got in the ways and over time we didn’t spend as much time together. How wonderful to spend 4 days together quilting, sewing, catching up, and eating (yep, who can forget eating??).

    The Potomac River….and Quilts!

    We walked down to the river just to take it in, but we didn’t have a lot of time to soak it all in, as thunder started to rumble in the distance and before we arrived back at the cottage, it had started to rain.

    What really amazed me was how wide the Potomac is right here at Colton’s Point! I could barely see the land on the other side of the river (which just so happened to be Virginia). I tried to find out how wide the Potomac was at Colton’s Point but could only find that the widest section was around 11 miles across and that was farther down towards Chesapeake Bay.

    Do you see the little island there on the right beyond the pier? That is St. Clements Island, which is where the first settlers to Maryland landed in the 1600’s. Of course, back then the island was something like 10 times larger!

    You can find the St. Clement’s Island Museum Campus down near the river. And on the museum grounds is a lovely Little Red Schoolhouse, built in 1820. We were able to go right into the schoolhouse, which is used for school field trips and events. It was like stepping back in time to Little House on the Prairie……

    As a former children’s librarian, I was thrilled to see a Little Free Library right outside the Little Red Schoolhouse!

    The next day, Bryon kindly shepherded Leslie and I back to the river, this time out on a pier, to witness the sunset. I was a little apprehensive walking out on the boardwalk to the pier, but I really wanted to have a front row seat for the sunset. Mother Nature did not disappoint! Not at all! My, what a sight! We also went to see the sunset again Wednesday night.

    Tuesday night’s sunset.

    Wednesday night’s sunset.

    And on Wednesday afternoon, I wandered back down to the pier for more photos, taking the 2 runners I quilted, Whirly Bird, and the Discovery top I had just completed (stay tuned for a Discovery tutorial next week).

    Here is my Whirly Bird quilt from last week’s tutorial! I haven’t added the binding yet, but it still looks beautiful. Being down at the river was really peaceful — I felt like I was the only person in the world for a little while, which really was priceless. I felt like I could really breathe here.

    Get your own print Whirly Bird HERE or digital Whirly Bird HERE.

    Here are 2 of the 3 table runners I brought with me to machine quilt. The one on the right is Molly’s Amen runner and the runner on the left is a variation of Amen.

    You can get your own print Amen HERE or digital Amen HERE.

    And here is my Discovery quilt top. I did a couple photos down at the river, but I think the autumn colors looked better on the picket fence in front of Cathey’s cottage.

    Get your print discovery HERE or your digital Discovery HERE.

    Sadly, Leslie and I are heading home in the morning, but we will be back. Soon.

    Just one more photo…………

    Well, that’s it for me this week! Stop back next week for a final Summer Tutorial.

    Until then —

    Sew. Laugh. Road Trip. Repeat.

    Always,

    Tricia @VRD

    Quilting Partners · Rose Cards · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

    VRD Whirly Bird Quilt Tutorial

    rosecards6 Comments

    Hello Quilty Friends!

    Happy Thursday to you!

    I hope your summer is still going strong and you are getting to do the things on your summer bucket list.

    This has been my busiest summer since before the Pandemic, that’s for sure. I’ve been doing things I haven’t done for years — gardening, the adult summer reading program at my local library (I even won a nice prize at the program potluck last week!), I’ve been to Presque Isle Park (Lake Erie) twice so far, made multiple trips to the big farmer’s market in Erie (PA), and even visited a relatively new local museum I’ve never been to before. Luckily, I’ve been making quilt tops for our Summer Tutorial series so I’ve even gotten in some fun sewing. Yay!

    The only issue with my busy crazy summer is that I’ve been neglecting a lot of things at home and in my studio space. So I guess I’ll have a lot to catch up on this fall. Sigh………..

    Road Trip

    Artwork by moi

    This Sunday, I’m even going on a summer road trip with my friend, Leslie — Hi Leslie! — to Maryland to visit our friend, Cathey — Hey Cathey!

    Looks like we’re going to have a good old-fashioned quiltathon/quilt retreat like we used to do years ago at Chautauqua Institution (Chautauqua NY) during Quilting around Chautauqua every September (sadly, the amazing quilt weekend is no more….). The three of us along with our other quilty pal, Mary Lee — Hey Mary Lee! — would rent a cottage and start our quilt weekend on a Wednesday so we could have a quilt retreat as well as enjoy the show on Saturday and Sunday. Ahhhhh, those were the days.

    I can’t wait to catch up with these gals because we’ve all kind of gone in different directions since Chautauqua.

    I’ll tell you all about my adventures in next week’s post, so stay tuned until then.

    Now let’s continue our Summer Tutorial series with an oldy, but a goodie — my pattern, Whirly Bird.

    VRD Whirly Bird Quilt Tutorial

    Today we’re going to have a little fun with Whirly Bird. Have you made this quilt yet? If so, please please please share it on our VRD Facebook page ’cause I’d really like to see them!

    If not, it’s fun and fast (of course) and has a lot of room for creativity.

    Get your print Whirly Bird HERE or your digital Whirly Bird HERE.

    When I designed Whirly Bird, I really wanted to do a gradation quilt featuring black, grey, and white. It turned out to be a pretty cool quilt with a very modern feel, which was what I was going after.

    Let’s change things up today by swapping the lights and darks! I think you’ll be really surprised when you see the finished top.

    So let’s get this party started, shall we?

    For today’s Whirly Bird, I am using the Touch of Grey collection by our quilting partner, Hoffman Fabrics. Yep, I’m sticking with a neutral theme for this version, but that’s really where the similarities end.

    The charcoal fabric at the bottom of the photo will be my background fabric and the 5 light fabrics in the center at the top will be the gradation strips in the quilt. The border is on the left and the binding is on the right.

    The first thing we’re gong to do is cut the fabrics according to the pattern, but swapping out the dark charcoal for the background (or light) fabric and the light greys for the graduated grey strips.

    While I cut, I am organizing my pieces on a flannel board so that I have the correct background piece paired with the correct light grey strip. Want to make your own flannel board? You can find the tutorial HERE.

    By arranging my pieces on my flannel board in order, I can simply take the board right to my sewing machine and start sewing immediately.

    So let’s do that!

    Let’s sew the charcoal background pieces to the corresponding light grey strips. This step went really fast because I used chain piecing for each pair for each block, stacked them back on my board, and then moved onto the next pair.

    Moving right along, we’re going to head to the ironing board. I pressed my seams to the dark, but this doesn’t work perfectly all the time. So press your seams in a way that makes sense to you.

    A note about pressing — I don’t usually give directions for pressing seams in tutorials and even on my patterns because every quilter has their own way of doing things. For me, I usually make those decisions on the fly as I sew. I usually do press to the dark, but sometimes I find that when sewing the the pieces of a block together, I have to flip my seams to the other side.

    Wanna hear a joke — an old favorite of mine?????

    What has a light side, a dark side, and holds the whole universe together???

    Keep reading to find the answer. Tehehe!

    After I pressed each strip pair, I put them back on my flannel board to keep things neat and tidy.

    And….back to the sewing machine!

    Next we are going to sew the pieced strips together into a block. One word of caution about having your pieces laid out on your flannel board — make sure you have them laid out in the right order or else your blocks won’t turn out the way you want them to. As a lefty, I sometimes have to double and triple check block or even quilt layouts before I sew the pieces together because it’s just too dang easy for me to flip things the wrong way.

    I used chain piecing to sew the blocks together. This process went super fast as I made all the blocks at one time, one step at a time, without stopping to press in between.

    Now, back to the ironing board to give these blocks a good press. I like to press the seams from the back first. Then I repress the block from the front, making sure everything is nice and flat.

    Remember, we PRESS in quilting, we do not IRON. Need a little refresher on pressing vs. ironing? Check out a blog post about pressing techniques from our 2022 Quilting Basics series HERE.

    Woohoo! The blocks are done and pressed — let’s arrange them on my design wall!

    This is the same arrangement of blocks as in the original Whirly Bird quilt on the front of the pattern. Wow! What a difference when you swap the lights and darks out in this design! What do you think???

    This is just one of many arrangements. Here are some other possibilities to give you food for thought when you make your own version of Whirly Bird.

    I bet you could even come up with 1 or 2 more!

    I decided to go with the original arrangement, so now let’s sew the blocks into rows and then sew the rows together.

    LOVE LOVE LOVE IT! Especially the repeating little pop of grey print in the middle of the light grey tonal strips — yep, I planned that on purpose for added interest. 🙂 I really like how those center print strips flip up, down, and sideways in the blocks — it really does add a bit of a secondary design and helps move your eyes around the quilt.

    Next up, we are going to add the border, although this quilt doesn’t have to have one — it would finish beautifully with a dark binding to frame the blocks. But, we’re adding a border.

    Sew the sides on first and then add the top and bottom. For more added interest, I added dark fabric squares in the 4 outer corners. This is a little bit different than the original pattern, so let me tell you how I did it:

    As this quilt is a square, I cut 4 borders the same length as my quilt top through the center and the same width as the pattern calls for as well as 4 squares. I sewed border strips to the sides of the quilt center. Next I sewed dark squares to both ends of the remaining 2 borders and then sewed them to the top and bottom of the quilt center. Easy piezy!

    If you don’t want corner squares, though, simply cut and sew the borders like you normally would.

    Here it is — my completed Whirly Bird quilt top. I really like how the dark corner squares connect to the dark block sections in all 4 corners.

    What are your thoughts?

    I’m planning to take this quilt with me to Cathey’s — I hope to get some machine quilting done. Fingers crossed……………

    DUCT TAPE!!!

    See you back here from Maryland next Thursday and I’ll tell you all about my trip. I hope Cathey’s hubby, Bryon, is doing all the cooking while we quilt, gab, laugh, and eat chocolate.

    Until then —

    Sew. Laugh. Party On. Repeat.

    Always,

    Tricia @VRD

    Rose Cards · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

    New August Villa Rosa Rose Card Quilt Patterns and VRD Weave Quilt Tutorial

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    Hello Quilty Friends!

    Happy Thursday to you!

    It’s August??? It’s August! How did that happen??? It must have sneaked up behind me when I wasn’t looking….

    The good news is that today is the Thursday after the first Friday of a new month! And guess what that means?

    Yep, you got it! NEW PATTERNS!

    NEW VRD Rose Card Patterns for August

    Aren’t they awesome? Definitely something for everyone this month from panel quilts to modern quilts. I bet you’re already picking which ones you’re going to make, am I right? I must confess that Drizzle rather fascinates me and I am looking forward to giving it a try soon. Hmm, a new tutorial, perhaps? Or maybe several as all of the new patterns are great.

    I know I probably say it every month, but our VRD designers keep surprising me with their innovative, fun, and easy to make patterns.

    PSST! Here’s the good news — you can order a set of all 5 print patterns for $8.95 HERE. Sorry, but we do not offer digital sets of patterns at this time unless you sign up for a Pattern Club (see below for more info), but you can peruse all of our digital patterns (including our newest patterns this month) HERE.

    But wait! There’s more! Tehehe — you knew I was going to say that.

    We have a new table runner and snack mat for August, too.

    Here is Honey, my most recent table runner pattern. It is quick and oh so satisfying because it uses many different fabrics. You can get the Honey print pattern HERE or the digital pattern HERE.

    A lot of folks have already been asking about the fabric I used for the runner. It’s called Honey & Lavender by Deb Strain for Moda. It is available in quilt shops right now. As the runner uses fat eighths, you can find a fat eighth collection HERE just in case you can’t find it at your local quilt shop, because these fabrics seem to fly right off the shelves.

    There’s also a new Snack Mat for August, too.

    Awww! Isn’t this the cutest l’il watermelon slice? You can get the print snack mat pattern HERE or the digital snack mat pattern HERE.

    Please forgive me for repeating myself, but as we have a lot of new subscribers and blog readers, I thought I’d remind all of you that you can get the new print patterns delivered right to your postal mail box every month if you live the USA.

    If you want to get digital patterns every month, YOU CAN TOO!

    All you have to do is follow one of the links to the appropriate Club form, below, and select “International” on the form in order to sign up to get digital pattern collections emailed to your inbox every month (you do not have to live outside the USA to sign up for digital patterns).

    HERE you will find the form to fill out to sign up to receive the 5 main patterns each and every month (select “International” if you want the digital pattern sets).

    OR

    HERE you will find the form to fill out to sign up to receive the 5 main patterns in addition to table runners and/or accessory patterns (select “International” if you want the digital pattern sets).

    Patterns always ship FREE, too. So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and sign up to get your monthly card sets delivered right to your doorstep or your email inbox. Never miss a new pattern!

    I hope you enjoyed last week’s post, 11 Awesome Ways to Incorporate Quilts into Your Life. Now that you know what to do with your quilts beyond the basics, let’s make more quilts. YEAH!

    Ready for another Summer Quilt Tutorial???

    VRD Weave Quilt Tutorial

    This being the last month of summer, I was in the mood for a late summer warm and sunny feeling quilt and I think you’ll agree that my version of Running Doe’s Weave quilt pattern certainly feels like an warm hazy lazy August afternoon.

    You can get your own print Weave pattern HERE or the digital Weave pattern HERE.

    Sit back and enjoy this Weave tutorial.

    For my Weave quilt today, I am using fabric from the Garnet Glow Batik Collection by our quilting partners, Hoffman California-International Fabrics.

    Did you happen see my Berry-Licious tutorial a while back? I used the same fabric collection for that table runner as I am using for Weave. You can check out the Berry-Licious Table Runner Quilt Tutorial HERE.

    Okay, let’s get started!

    First thing you need to do is decide how you will arrange your fabrics. As you will see later in the tutorial, I had 6 lighter fat quarters and 6 darker fat quilters so I decided to alternate my lights and darks. This decision influenced how I cut my rectangles because 6 fabrics are cut one way and the other 6 fabrics are cut a different way.

    The rectangles are simple to cut with a basic 6″ or 6.5″ x 24″ ruler and an 18″ x 24″ cutting mat. Simply lay the fat quarter out on your mat with the 22″ side horizontal and the 18″ vertical. Cut strips according to the size in the pattern and then cut the strips into rectangles. I was able to comfortably layer 3 fat quarters at a time to cut — do likewise if you feel comfortable.

    Did you know that if your rotary cutter starts skipping while you cut, it’s probably time to change your rotary blade?

    After cutting all of your fat quarters into rectangles, go ahead and cut your accent fabric into rectangles, too.

    Now it’s time to sew the accent strips between matching rectangles. There are actually 2 different rows, so make sure to keep your fabrics straight.

    Then press your rows. The middle photo shows my pile of rows ready to get pressed (and maybe untangled! LOL!).

    The great news is that it doesn’t really matter which way you press your seams because the seams are all offset when you sew the rows together. This is really great and makes Weave a beginner friendly project.

    Just a quick tip — while I was pressing my rows, I folded each row in half and pressed a crease for the center of the row. That way, as I pin the rows together, I can match up the centers so my quilt will come out straight and not skewed or twisted.

    The rows are finished, so let’s put the rows up on the design wall. My plan, as I mentioned above is the alternate lighter and darker strips. Huh. A few strips up on my design board and I’m already rearranging.

    All the strips are up. Hmm. Not quite. Arrange some more. There are 12 rows in this quilt and I don’t like how the lights and darks are not completely balanced. Back to the drawing board……what can I do now?

    Let’s try it again.

    AHA! I know what I’m gong to do — I am going to add another light row to the bottom because I always find an odd number more pleasing than an . I have an extra fat quarter for the top row, which would give the illusion of a top/bottom border if they are the same as well as some leftover accent fabric. It would also give me some visual balance with lights at the top and bottom instead of a light at the top and a dark at the bottom. Let’s go with that!

    I know it’s hard to visualize right now, but trust me that the extra light strip at the bottom makes all the difference!

    If I make this again in the future, I don’t think I’ll try to alternate lights and darks — I think random would probably be easier to put together.

    Whew — I wasn’t sure I’d ever figure it out, but boy oh boy, am I glad that I did! Time to sew the rows together before I change my mind.

    Remember when I pressed a crease in the center of each row? Now I am going to match up the centers of each row and then smooth the rows all the way to the ends. I put a pin in my center crease, and lined up the outside edges.

    See the pin in the second photo, perpendicular to the edge at the end of the row? I think that’s probably the most important pin in the whole pinning the layers process — I keeps the rows square and keeps the rows from sliding and skewing when I am sewing. Thanks, Pat P. for teaching this important little trick to me when I was a beginning quilter.

    My plan is to sew the rows into pairs, sew the pairs into quads, and then sew the quads together. I will add the 13th row to the last quad (so it will actually have 5 strips in it before I sew it to the previous quad).

    Yay! It too me less time to sew the rows together than it did for me to arrange the rows to my liking. Figures……..

    Sorry, Weave is a bit too big for me to show you the whole thing on my design wall.

    Let’s go outside!

    Here it is — Miss America. Ummmm, maybe not. Seriously, though, here is my Weave quilt top.

    I love the warm saturated colors! Maybe I should have picked a slightly darker accent, but I do like its subtlety. It really is a late summer sun-kissed quilt. Now I just need to get it layered so I can quilt it……

    Well, I think that’s about it for me this week.

    Until next Thursday —

    Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

    Always,

    Tricia @ VRD

    Quilting Partners · Rose Cards · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

    VRD 31 (Thirty One) Quilt Tutorial

    rosecards9 Comments

    Hello Quilty Friends!

    Happy Thursday to you!

    I’m going to get right to our tutorial today because you are going to LOVE LOVE LOVE today’s quilt! And I can’t wait to show it to you.

    31 is our project du jour. It was designed by Molly Cook. You can go HERE to read an interview I had with Molly last year if you’d like to get to know her a little bit. Occasionally she pops onto the blog, but it’s been a while, so I’ll have to remind her she has an open invitation to hang out with us anytime she wants. Isn’t it fun to get to know your favorite VRD designers? I know, I know — I need to get my tush in gear and get some more interviews with our lovely designers, don’t I?

    VRD 31 Quilt Tutorial

    31 is a fabulous asymmetrical panel quilt design and looks great in pretty much any fabric collection!

    This week I’m continuing my “Christmas in July” theme. For this quilt, I’m using the new Holiday Style collection by Satin Moon for our quilting partner, Blank Quilting (in store now). This gorgeous collection is traditional (poinsettias) and modern at the same time (red, pink, black, white, and grey colorway)! Which is probably why I adore it. I’m not a huge fan of woodsy deer and bears and such, but the deer on the panel is lovely and delicate with a Scandi feel. The artwork is beautiful and invites a second and even a third look at all of the details.

    And here are the companion fabrics I’m using for 31.

    Let’s get to it!

    The first thing we need to do is trim the panel to the correct size. I measured my panel and decided to completely remove the printed plaid panel border and start over from scratch. The problem I ran into once I removed the outer part was that my panel ended up a bit small. But never fear — that’s an easy fix we’ll talk about in just a minute.

    Now to fix the size issue — I did the math and figured out I needed to add 1/2″ to my side border strips so my panel with the border would end up the correct size. Luckily, the pattern includes the figures to guide you through trimming your panel and adding the panel border. Take your time to make sure your panel with the border will be the right size before moving on.

    Please note that if your panel with the border is too small, add another narrow border and then trim it to the correct measurements. Conversely, if your panel with the border is too big, simply trim it to the correct size.

    Once I figured out the math for sure, then I cut my borders. I thought it was kind of funny to cut off the grey plaid on the panel only to replace it with a grey plaid border. Silly me, but now the math works out just right.

    I sewed my side borders on first and then I sewed my top and bottom borders to the panel after that. And PRESTO! My framed panel was exactly the right measurement because I took the time to figure it out before I cut and sewed. Yay me!

    Now let’s cut the rest of the fabric for the quilt.

    All set! Background and prints are cut and we’re ready to move on.

    Time to make some Half Square Triangles (HSTs)! Believe it or not, but I really like making HSTs — probably because they are building blocks for so many different quilt block patterns.

    Layer a background and a print square right sides together (RST) and draw a diagonal line from corner to opposite corner. Using your 1/4″ seam, sew on both sides of the line. Then cut on the line to make 2 HSTs. Easy piezy!

    I like to chain piece all my HSTs before I head to my iron to press them. If you are able, press half of each print/background combination seams towards the background and the other half towards the print. This way your HSTs will nestle together, snug as a bug.

    After you’ve pressed all of the HSTs, it’s time to square them up and cut off the little dog ears, if needed. I literally just trimmed off slivers to get them to the right size.

    Have you ever tried a Bloc Loc ruler for squaring up/trimming your HSTs — there is a little diagonal channel that sits over your seam and keeps everything from moving or sliding around. Very clever ruler that does one thing and does it very well. Of course, there are lots of different square rulers on the market for squaring up HSTs and other blocks. What are your favorites?

    Yippee! Now let’s sew our HST’s into Arrow (or Chevron) blocks. Sew 4 matching HSTs together into a Four Patch block, turning the HSTs as shown. This is where having 2 HST seams towards the background and 2 towards the print really comes in handy so that your seams nestle together and help you to have nicer points with less bulk.

    Repeat to make all the Arrow blocks for the quilt. Then head over to the iron to give them a good press.

    Now sew background rectangles to the top of the Arrow blocks.

    Yay! On to one of my favorite parts (sometimes anyway….LOL!) — laying out and arranging the blocks. Now that I use a flannel-backed table cloth hung up in front of my fabric storage cubes, it’s a lot easier than it used to be when I laid my quilts out on a bed. Ugh! When I was a novice quilter (and a lot younger than I am now), I used to lay them out on the floor. Not anymore, thank you!

    Lay out the quilt according to the pattern diagram, flipping the Arrow blocks as shown. I played around with my color placement and decided I liked the arrangement in the second photo the best.

    Next, let’s sew the blocks together on the right side of the panel. Please note you will need to add a background strip to the top and bottom of the section so that it will fit.

    Okay, let’s sew the bottom row of blocks together and then sew the section to the bottom of the panel. Yes, the borders are added in a clockwise fashion instead of adding opposite sides at the same time.

    Looking good! Let’s sew a background border strip to the left side next.

    The top background border strip is last.

    And here it! 31 is done! Isn’t it lovely??? The colors just glow, don’t they???

    I am thinking about adding an outer border to make it a bigger throw quilt size, but haven’t quite decided yet. What do you think — should I add another border or finish it as is?

    As I am writing this post, I have my 31 quilt top up on my flannel wall so I can just enjoy looking it at. It will stay there until I start my next summer tutorial.

    That’s it for me this week.

    Happy Summer and Happy Quilting!

    Until next Thursday —

    Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

    Always,

    Tricia @ VRD

    Quilting Partners · Rose Cards · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

    VRD Duffy Quilt Tutorial

    rosecards6 Comments

    Hello Quilty Friends!

    Happy Thursday to you!

    Summer time. Summer time. Sum-sum-summertime.

    Don’t you just love classic summertime songs, especially from the 1950’s and 60’s? I do! When I was a kid in the summertime, we camped every weekend and probably every Friday and Saturday night we were all hanging out around a campfire with our camping friends, sharing stories and roasting hot dogs, making s’mores and camper pies. We’d have the Saturday night oldies program (Cousin Brucie, I think?) blaring on the radio and we’d all be singing along.

    Ahhhhh, those were the days……. Thinking back, my wonderful childhood memories growing up in the 1970’s and 1980’s, lead me to yet another classic song, Time in a Bottle.

    Image created by moi in Photoshop

    I am happy to share that my sewing machine is finally up and running again on my new-to-me Koala Quiltmate III sewing table. YAY! This table is such a better height for little short me (under 5′ 4″ on a tall day) and I feel more comfortable now with my chair lower along with more leg room under the table, too. My old cabinet was lovely but a bit too tall for me and there wasn’t much leg room so I always felt crowded.

    Hooray! Let’s hear it for new-to-you sewing tables! OH! I also bought a new cover for my old sturdy sewing chair to freshen it up from its drab 1980’s dark green tweed. Now to finally get the arms taken off my chair which will make “bellying up” to my machine much easier.

    Please excuse my mess in the photo, but I am still sorting out my sewing area. I’m getting there….slowly. The important thing is I CAN SEW AGAIN!

    Now that I can sewing again, I’m thrilled to put together another Summer Tutorial for you! I chose Duffy for a several reasons —

    1. It’s super quick
    2. I had a new fabric collection from Studio E ready to go
    3. It’s July’s Top Along selection for Running Doe’s 2024 Top Along
    4. Who doesn’t love making Christmas Quilts in July?

    Sew, let’s get started!

    VRD Duffy Quilt Tutorial

    My fabric today is from one of our friends and quilting partners, Studio E — thank you! The collection is called ‘Tis the Season and it is shipping to quilt shops as I write this, so make sure to ask for it at your local quilt shop. Duffy is one of the featured patterns for Studio E’s ‘Tis the Season collection. Pretty cool, huh? VRD is popping up everywhere!

    I’m using the gorgeous holiday birdhouse block fabric from the collection for my focal print in the blocks. Lucky me, the square are just the right size.

    I don’t usually enjoy making swiss cheese out of my fabric (or, fussy cutting, if you prefer that term), but I didn’t mind with this project because I was cutting the printed blocks out, which really only left bits and pieces of the black swirl fabric between the blocks. I love that I even had a ruler to rotary cut the correct size square for the pattern.

    The squares are ready, so let’s cut the rest of the fabrics.

    Now it’s time to get down to the business of putting this delightful quilt together!

    Please note there are 2 blocks in this quilt — the block is the same, but the fabrics are different in each one. As you make your own quilt, please make sure to keep your fabrics organized.

    Let’s make our Flying Geese units for the first block. Layer a square RST on the right side of the Block 1 rectangle. Draw a line from the top left corner of the square to the opposite bottom corner and sew on the line. Cut 1/4″ away from the line. Feel free to save the cutaway triangles for another project (PSST! Sometime in the future I plan to create a pattern using all those cutoff triangles, so tuck them away until then). Open the unit and press towards the triangle.

    Okay, let’s make the left side of our Flying Goose unit. Place the square RST on the left side of the rectangle this time. Draw a line from the bottom left corner of the square to the top right corner and sew on the line. Trim 1/4″ away from the line and save your cutoff triangles if you wish. Press open.

    Voila! One Flying Goose unit.

    Did you know that the center large triangle is the goose while the smaller outside triangles are the wings???

    Now we are going to repeat the steps above to make Flying Geese units for the second block.

    Check! Flying Geese units for both blocks are done.

    Moving on, we are going to start making our quilt blocks. I told you this quilt goes together quickly, didn’t I?

    Sew Flying Geese units to the sides (or in my case in the photos, the top and bottom) of the focal print square. I pressed my seams towards the center square.

    Next sew Block 1 (OOPS! or 2 in my case — don’t ask me why I did things backwards here….) squares to the ends of 2 Flying Geese units. Then sew to the top and bottom (or sides in my case) of the focal print square. I pressed my seams towards the center. Make 6 Block 1s.

    Okay, now on to Block 2 (or 1 in my case). Repeat the steps we did for Block 1 (or 2 for me). For Block 2, I pressed my seams towards the Flying Geese units, hoping that by doing so will make my seams nestle nicely together when I sew the blocks together. Make 6 Block 2s.

    Woohoo! Super fast. Told you!

    The blocks are done and let’s take a look at 2 variations of the quilt — all I did was change the placement of Block 1 and Block 2.

    I bet there are lots of other variations, especially if you play around with your fabric placement.

    These 2 are pretty much the same since it’s just switching the blocks, but which one do you like better? Which one do you think I chose?

    If you guessed the second photo, you are right! Now it’s time to sew the blocks together.

    I found that most of my seams did indeed nestle together. For the couple that were being stubborn, I forced them to behave.

    It turned out really cute, don’t you think??? I really like the secondary designs that pop out. Because Duffy is baby quilt sized, I might just add an outer border to make it into a small throw-sized quilt because I just don’t have extra wall space for quilts.

    Which brings me to some final thoughts for you about Duffy:

    1. Add a border (or 2) to make it bigger — I’m thinking maybe a 6″ finished border as I have another fabric from the collection that I didn’t use.
    2. Make more blocks to make the quilt bigger — just make sure you purchase enough fabric.
    3. You could use Duffy as a jumping off point and add a series of pieced or appliqued borders, using Duffy as the quilt center.
    4. You could add sashing between the blocks to give it an entirely different look and make it a bit bigger. When I add sashing to a quilt, I usually stick with cutting my strips 2 1/2″ wide.

    Well, I hope you will have fun making your own Duffy quilt. I’d LOVE to see them so please share on our VRD Facebook Page.

    Enjoy your summer! Do something fun with the ones you love. And don’t forget to squeeze in a little quilting.

    See you next week, same time same place —

    Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

    Always,

    Tricia @ VRD

    Curated Rose Card Pattern Lists · Rose Cards · villa rosa designs

    NEW July Villa Rosa Designs Rose Card Quilt Patterns and a Curated VRD Patriotic Pattern List

    rosecards3 Comments

    Hello Quilty Friends!

    Happy Thursday to you!

    I trust everyone had a great 4th of July? Me, I enjoyed my share of picnic foods — yummy — and went to a local fireworks display. I was amazed the folks shooting off the fireworks were able to do so in the intermittent downpour we were having at the time. Because of the rain situation, I felt that these fireworks were especially wonderful and I even saw some new fireworks I’ve never seen before.

    I am still reconfiguring my sewing space and I haven’t gotten my sewing machine up and running yet, so sadly, I do not have a quilt tutorial for you this week. My machine is currently surrounded by piles of quilty goodness which all need to find a new permanent home — too bad it doesn’t just relocate itself without my help.

    I hope to have a new summer tutorial for next week — that is if I get some quality time cleaning and organizing all my quilting stuff to unearth my sewing machine once again.

    Yay! Guess what part of the month it is??? You guessed it — it’s the Thursday after the first Friday of July…..which means, of course, NEW PATTERNS! Woohoo!

    NEW July VRD Rose Card Patterns

    Can you hear the trumpets and see the confetti???

    Here they are — our newest VRD Rose Card patterns!

    Aren’t they GREAT??? Absolutely something for everyone! And 1776 is even perfectly-sized for your next Quilts of Valor quilt.

    Grab your own print set of July’s 5 Rose Cards HERE (sorry, the card sets are not available as a digital set, you would have to order each pattern individually).

    BUT WAIT! There’s more!

    You’ll LOVE this month’s table runner, Banner Day. It would even look grand hung vertically or horizontally on a wall, if that’s your preference. SEW many options to enjoy this striking runner!

    Get your print Banner Day pattern HERE or a digital pattern HERE.

    AND, of course, here’s July’s new Snack Mat, Independence Day.

    These snack mats are perfect for summertime snacking! Make a set for yourself and a set for someone special.

    Get your print Independence Day pattern HERE or a digital pattern HERE.

    Which project will you make first???

    As I don’t have a tutorial for you today, I thought I’d create another curated list of patterns for you. This time, in honor of our recent July 4th holiday and celebrations, let’s feature Patriotic quilts.

    Patriotic Villa Rosa Rose Card Quilt Patterns

    For this list, I’m going to concentrate on the print patterns, but please know that each of these patterns is available as a digital download as well (except for the 12 Quilts of Valor Collection but each of the patterns included in the QOV Collection are available as individual downloaded patterns just not in the special red, white, and blue covers).

    Of course, the 12 Quilts of Valor collection has to come first on my list. Do you have this collection yet? If not, you’ll want to add it because all 12 patterns are perfectly sized for Quilts of Valor quilts. And a portion of the sales are donated to the Quilts of Valor Foundation. It’s a win-win-win — for you, for QOVF, and for service members.

    If you do have this set, have you made any of them? If so, which designs? And which one are you going to make next?

    Get your Quilts of Valor Collection HERE

    Of course I have to include the new July pattern, 1776!

    Get 1776 HERE

    Get American Made HERE

    Here’s Banner Day, of course.

    Get Banner Day HERE

    Get Bella Vista HERE

    Get Crazy Stars HERE

    Get Daring Spirit HERE

    Get Firecracker HERE

    Get Gallant HERE

    Get Independence Day HERE

    Get Liberty HERE

    Get Liberty Bell HERE

    Get Petit Fours HERE

    Get Pride HERE

    Get Salute HERE

    Get Sew Charmed HERE

    Get Star Rail HERE

    Get Star Spangled HERE

    Get Stars N Stripes HERE

    Get Unfurled HERE

    Get Wraps HERE

    Get Zig Zag HERE

    Well, that’s my list of the red, white, and blue for today. I hope you add these wonderful quilts to your Rose Card collection if you don’t already have them.

    Of course, keep in mind that just about any VRD pattern can be patriotic if you choose the right fabrics!

    Happy stitching!

    Until next week —

    Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

    Always,

    Tricia @ VRD

    Rose Cards · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

    VRD Lattice Table Runner Quilt Tutorial

    rosecards2 Comments

    Hello Quilty Friends!

    Happy Thursday to you!

    Happy Independence Day!!!

    Photo by Jim Strasma on Unsplash

    I hope you get the chance to enjoy some patriotic FUN FOOD and FIREWORKS! And please don’t forget to pause a moment to reflect on how the United States of America got here.

    Last Friday, my quilty pal, Robin (Hey Robin!), and I did a road trip down to Pittsburgh to pick up my new gently-used sewing cabinet, which I found for sale online. Robin drove her truck because there wasn’t any way my new cabinet would fit into my Jeep. LOL!

    I didn’t know who the maker was from the photos online, but it was exactly what I needed to upgrade my own sewing space! My current cabinet was an older Pfaff (maybe made by Arrow) — truly a gorgeous solid wood cabinet with a hand-operated machine lift and 4 drawers, but what it lacked was an extension on the back which would have made machine quilting A LOT easier for me. My new-to-me cabinet has 2 drawers in the sewing table along with a separate 3 drawer rolling caddy AND AN EXTENSION TABLE! Woohoo! And it’s white, my favorite finish. It really is my dream cabinet! Lucky me!

    Screenshot
    Screenshot

    When the owner’s very kind patient husband loaded it into the truck, we discovered that it was a Koala Quiltmate III, which isn’t manufactured anymore. Fine with me, it’s perfect just the way it is.

    After the cabinet was securely covered and literally tied into the back of the truck, Robin and I headed on to Ikea, where we, of course, had Swedish meatballs for lunch. Unfortunately, Ikea was right in the middle of updating a lot of their spaces for fall, so there weren’t as many “rooms” on display as usual. Bummer. But we had loads of fun just looking around at the rooms that were still on display and checking out the marketplace downstairs with all those awesome goodies. Do you have Ikea stuff in your sewing space? What item(s) do you use the most? I love there colorful carts and little drawer units on wheels.

    After Ikea, we headed back home. On the way, we talked about how on earth we were going to get my cabinet off the truck and into my sewing dungeon. Robin ended up calling in reinforcements (her hubby and son — THANK YOU Rich and Ryan!) to help get the cabinet off the truck at my house and then my Dad and I rolled out my current cabinet and then rolled my new cabinet into my dungeon sewing room. It wasn’t as easy as it sounds, but it’s there now AND it fit through the doorway, which was a relief…… Thank goodness it had wheels!

    Now I have the wonderful and awful task of cleaning out and rearranging my space so that I can have the extension up for machine quilting. I’ve been looking for a reason to begin my major studio clean up and purge. I now have a BIG reason and motivation to get things organized and cleaned up. Wish me luck. If you don’t hear from me next week, assume I’m buried under my stash and call the quilt police for me, okay?

    Let’s get onto our next Summer Tutorial project — Lattice!

    VRD Lattice Table Runner Quilt Tutorial

    Lattice is a fun table runner with a really cool woven effect. You only need 3 fabrics — light, medium, and dark along with a coordinate for your border.

    You can get the print Lattice pattern HERE or the digital Lattice pattern HERE.

    My original sample for the pattern was made with one of my favorite color combinations — red, white, and black. Just love how striking it is! Today’s Lattice runner will be in summery blue and yellow. Just goes to show you that Lattice is a flexible pattern and looks great in a lot of different fabric combinations and styles.

    Here are my fabrics for Lattice. The large print was on the sale rack at my local quilt shop and the yellow, blue, and background fabrics are from my stash.

    Time to cut these pretty fabrics.

    Once we cut the background fabric (white in the pattern) and the dark (black in the pattern) fabric into squares, we’ll need to cut them on both diagonals to make small triangles.

    Next we need to cut the medium fabric (red in the pattern) into squares. This time, cut on only one diagonal to make large triangles.

    Here are our triangles ready to go. That’s all we need to make ALL the blocks! Easy peasy!

    Let’s sew the background and dark small triangles together. We need to sew a background and a dark triangle together along the shortest straight side, as shown in the 1st image so that they will make a larger triangle. Once we’ve stitched all the small triangles together, it’s time to give them a gentle press with the iron — be careful not to stretch this unit by pressing too hard because of the bias edges.

    FYI — this unit is technically half of a Quarter Triangle Square (QTS).

    Now let’s sew the large medium triangles to the pieced triangle units from above. Our blocks are coming together!

    Next up is pressing our blocks and then snipping off those annoying little dog ears. Sure, you could just leave them, but I have found that snipping them off makes for more accurate sewing.

    These blocks actually have a name — they are called Y Blocks. My friend, Cathey of Cathey Marie Designs (Hey Cathey!), is completely crazy about this block and all of its design possibilities. She loves it so much, she even created her own ruler, called the Y Block Ruler, which creates 4 identical units at the same time as well as a series of Y Block patterns. If you ever stop by her website, tell her Tricia sent you. LOL!

    Now let’s sew our blocks together, 13 across by 2 down, turning them as shown below to get the Lattice effect.

    But wait! There’s more. As I mentioned above, the Y Block is a really cool block with lots of design potential. So, let’s rearrange the blocks a bit to see what we get.

    Which one is your favorite? They are all quite interesting, but my favorite is still the original Lattice layout. 🙂

    Once you’ve decided on your setting and you’ve sewn your blocks together, it’s time to add the border. Sew borders to the short ends first and then sew borders to the long sides.

    Sorry about the weird lighting – this was taken in my sewing dungeon.

    As you can see, I haven’t had a chance to machine quilt this runner yet. Just as soon as I can get my space rearranged and my new sewing cabinet all set up, I’ll be catching up on my stack of projects waiting to be quilted. YAY!

    Well, I guess that’s it for me. Feel free to get back to your July Fourth Festivities now! Save some watermelon for me!

    Until next time —

    Sew. Laugh. Celebrate. Repeat.

    Always,

    Tricia @ VRD

    Quilt Stories · Quilting Partners · Rose Cards · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

    VRD Berry-Licious Quilt Table Runner Tutorial

    rosecards2 Comments

    Hello Quilty Friends!

    Happy Thursday to you!

    Hope you enjoyed last week’s post about the quilt show I attended. I’m still smiling. 🙂 If you missed last week’s post, you can go HERE to see the fun slideshow I created with some of the amazing quilts on display at the quilt show.

    Before we get to this week’s tutorial, Berry-Licious — which is lots of fun and very timely — let me tell you a little bit about the inspiration for this table runner. In my area of Northwestern PA, we always look forward to late spring/early summer for a lot of reasons, but one of my favorites are the local strawberries, which are only available for a few weeks in June. Yum, yum, yummy!

    When I was a kid, my older sister and older cousins (I was too little) all worked at a local strawberry farm, picking berries. They would meet in town at like 6 AM, and someone from the farm would pick up the kids and drive them to the farm outside of town. Horrors! The kids actually road in the back of the truck to the farm! Then the kids would pick berries for hours, and got paid per quart that they picked. My sister only did it once because it was such hard work, but my older boy cousins did it every summer all through high school and were often the best pickers. The work only lasted 2 or maybe 3 weeks right after school was out for the summer. If you were a teen in my area, this was kind of a rite of passage. I don’t remember if when I was old enough to pick berries, kids didn’t do it anymore or if I just wasn’t interested, but picking strawberries was a rite of passage I never did.

    Strawberries have always been one of my favorite fruits, though. When I was really little, we even had a tiered strawberry patch in the backyard. My Mom (Hey Mom!) would make the most delicious strawberry jam and we’d enjoy that all winter long. If I close my eyes I can almost taste it and my mouth is watering, just remembering….

    Ahhhh, good times.

    VRD Berry-Licious Table Runner Quilt Tutorial

    Have you made Berry-Licious yet? It’s a fun and very satisfying runner. You can grab your very own Berry-Licious Rose Card print pattern HERE or digital pattern HERE.

    In the sample runner on the pattern, I used a fun collection of plaids, dots, and geometrics in delicious bright red for the strawberries.

    For my tutorial example today, I am using fabric from the Garnet Glow Batik Collection by our pals Hoffman California-International Fabrics. Fun fact — did you know Hoffman’s been around since 1924???

    Aren’t they just delish? The peachy fabrics makes me think of a strawberry not quite ripe yet.

    I just love seeing how different fabrics look in the same pattern, don’t you? That’s one of my absolute favorite things about our VRD Facebook group.

    Check out these Berry-Licious runners made by Renay Trolinger (Hi Renay!) in our VRD FB group! Aren’t they just too much fun??? I especially love the runner on the left — you know, the one with all the attitude. Great work, Renay!

    Let’s get this tutorial going, shall we?

    After I cut all the pieces for the runner, I layered my large green and background squares to make Half Square Triangles (HSTs) for the leaves on the stem. Layer those squares right sides together (RST), draw a diagonal line from one corner to the opposite corner, sew on both sides of the drawn line, cut apart on the drawn line, and press the HST open (I like to press my seams to the darker fabric, but that doesn’t always work all the time).

    Then like magic you get 2 HSTs! You’ll need to make 10 HSTs. Don’t forget to trim off those little dog ears on the corners!

    Wait! We’re not done with those HSTs yet. Now we’re going to use the small background squares to make “flippy corners” — yes, I’m using the professional term here — on the green triangles of our HSTs.

    Layer a background square RST on the corner of the green triangle. Draw a diagonal line from the bottom left corner to the opposite corner on the background square. (Yup, LOVE my Frixion pens, especially the Fineliner ones. This red one has been my favorite for a while now and shows up on almost everything.)

    Sew ON the line this time and cut 1/4″ away from the line. Open and press. Repeat with all 10 HSTs.

    We’re still not done with these HSTs! Tehehe……

    Now we need to sew a background rectangle to the top of each HST, but we need to make 5 left side leaves and 5 right side leaves (simply turn 5 of the leaves so they are mirror images).

    Whew! Last step with the HST’s for now!

    Sew a left leaf and a right leaf together with a green stem in between. Strawberry tops are done!

    Now we’re going to make our strawberries — yum, the best part of the runner!

    We’re going to make 2 small flippy corners on the top corners and 2 large flippy corners on the bottom corners. Repeat for all 5 strawberries.

    Now let’s add the stems to the tops of the strawberries! Make 5 blocks.

    Isn’t this just the cutest yummiest quilt block ever??????

    Now the blocks are done, let’s put them together into a runner. You actually have 2 options — you can flip the second and fourth blocks upside down like I did in the original runner on the pattern front or you could have all the strawberries going in the same direction. Which way do you like better?

    Which one do you think I chose?

    The flipped block version. I just love how the blocks look arranged this way. Take a look at the “negative space,” isn’t it interesting?

    Maybe when I go to quilt it, I’ll play around with those cool shapes created by the strawberries and stems. How would you quilt it? My original version was quilted with loopy loops.

    I had some fabric left over so I made this fun little wall quilt or pillow — I haven’t decided yet. It’s about 21″ square, so it could go either way. What do you think?

    Well, that’s it for me for this week. I hope you enjoyed this truly scrumptious (anyone know what movie this phrase was in???) Berry-Licious runner and I look forward to seeing yours on Facebook soon.

    Come back next week to see my next summer tutorial! Hmmm…..what should I do next???

    Until next week —

    Sew. Laugh. Eat Strawberries. LOTS of Strawberries. Repeat.

    Always,

    Tricia @VRD

    Just Quilty Stuff · Rose Cards · villa rosa designs

    NEW June VRD Rose Card Quilt Patterns and a Quilt Show

    rosecards10 Comments

    Hello Quilty Friends!

    Happy Thursday to you!

    Summer is here! Let the good times roll! Get out there and soak up some sunshine! That’s an order!

    Sorry….I know I said I was going to do a table runner tutorial this week, but I just had to show off the new Rose Card patterns for June and share my recent quilt show experience with you. We’ll save the table runner for next week, I promise.

    What a special day — today is the Thursday after the first Friday of the month. And you know what that means!

    Woohoo!

    NEW PATTERNS!

    New June VRD Rose Card Patterns

    Yay! Here they are. Aren’t they fun? I don’t think you’ll go wrong with whichever pattern you chose to make first. They are all equally great.

    Get the June pattern set HERE

    (sorry, no digital pattern sets)

    Want a F-U-N way to get started on a summer quilt? Order a kit from VRD, of course! You can see all of our kit offerings HERE. In fact, some of the new patterns, above, still have kits available. They’re going fast, though, so get yours before they’re gone.

    NEVADA in Porch Swing 36″x 45″ (cover of pattern)

    NEVADA in Wild Abandon 36″x 45″

    S’MORES in Tan 51″x 68″ (cover of pattern)

    S’MORES in Kaffe 51″x 68″

    S’MORES in Misty Garden 51″x 68″

    HOPPY SCOTCH Color Collage 45″x64″ (cover of pattern)

    But wait! There’s more! (Sorry, it looks like I’m in an exclamation kind of mood today. I’m not really yelling at you, though, just excited.)

    No table runner this month due to technical difficulties, but check out these cute little Buzzy Bee Snack mats! And no stingers, so you can enjoy them safely, even if you’re allergic.

    Get your Buzzy Bee Snack Mat physical pattern HERE

    or the digital pattern HERE

    Now that you’ve seen the new patterns for June, let me tell you about the quilt show I went to last week.

    2024 HAAEQG Quilt Show

    The HAAEQG stands for Hands All Around Erie Quilt Guild. It’s actually been a couple years since I’ve been to an actual quilt show, so when I saw the poster on Facebook, I was so ready for a huge inspiration shot in the arm. And I wasn’t disappointed. We filled up the car with my 3 crazy quilting cousins (I call them the Cuz Crew) — Kim, Robin, and Lisa — and me (Hi there Cuz Crew!). We headed to Erie, PA (about 30 minutes away) for a FART (Fabric Acquisition Road Trip). We found the church where the show was being help, but we decided to find somewhere to eat because I wasn’t quite sure whether there would be food at the show, but of course there was).

    The church was a couple streets over from the medical center where I’ve been taking my Mom for her appointments, and we’d recently had a very good lunch at the neighboring hospital cafeteria. So when we ended up by the medical center and hospital, I suggested we eat at the cafeteria. Maybe you think that’s a little weird, but — hey — the food is good and you have a lot of options in the food court. Everyone was game, so off to the hospital cafeteria we went.

    Yum! The food was great! 3 of us had hot turkey sandwiches with either real mash potatoes and gravy or a broccoli rice casserole and/or a lovely veggie mix. Wish I’d thought to take a photo of all that food for you, but I imagine drooling on your device wouldn’t be such a great idea, would it?

    Yup, now we were all powered up for the Quilt Show and back to the church we went.

    Would you believe one of the first quilts I saw was my VRD Rose Card pattern Sisterhood made up in a lovely calming neutral palette.

    Here I am with that gorgeous Sisterhood quilt, made by MaryBeth Cook, a member of the HAAEQG.

    Here’s the Sisterhood Rose Card pattern in case you can’t really get an idea of the actual design or if you haven’t added this top seller Rose Card to your collection. I love how the neutral shades really change the whole look of the quilt, don’t you?

    You can find Sisterhood HERE.

    I was so excited and couldn’t wait to share the news with my Cuz Crew, who had already started to wander. A guild member was nearby and heard me. She got really excited, too, and told me not to move so she could get her sister, who had made the quilt.

    This is how I met MaryBeth Cook (Hey there, MaryBeth!). What a lovely way to meet a new quilting friend and VRD fan!

    Here we are together, posing in front of MaryBeth’s gorgeous quilt, which she made for her daughter. Lucky daughter, indeed! I didn’t get to ask you, MaryBeth, but what drew you to the Sisterhood pattern?

    Now, let me tell you about the quilt show. There were somewhere between 350-400 or so quilts on display in every style, technique, and color combination you could think of! They were amazing! I must admit that I was a real slowpoke looking at and photographing quilts. By the time I did a spot of shopping, the Cuz Crew were sitting and waiting for me. Sorry. Not sorry. Meeting MaryBeth, seeing her Sisterhood quilt, and oohhing and aahhing over all the quilts really made my day. My cuz, Robin, told me later that she hadn’t seen me smile so much for a long time.

    There were 2 very cool things going on at the quilt show, in addition to the quilts, that made the show experience even more fun:

    1. When you entered the show, you were given a sheet of paper with numbered lines on it for a Scavenger Hunt. Hidden amongst the quilts in the show were quilt blocks from an Underground Railroad quilt. The quilt was on display at the front table for reference. We had to write the correct quilt block name next to each number and then return the completed list to the table to register for prizes. What fun!
    2. Throughout the show quilt blocks were lined up alphabetically depicting a quilter’s alphabet. It was a show within a show!

    While I enjoyed each and every quilt, I took photos of some of my favs to make you a slide show. Please note that each quilt’s maker information/story is the slide following the quilt in my slide show.

    Why do I include the maker information??? It’s important to share the maker’s name and story not only to celebrate the maker’s accomplishment, but also to acknowledge that they are the creator of that quilt.

    So, grab a frosty glass of sweet tea and watch my little slide show full of quilts from the HAAEQG Quilt Show!

    I hope you enjoyed seeing some of the wonderful quilts on display at the quilt show. I have been enjoying looking at them a few more times myself! There would have been more photos, but on many of them I jerked or moved which resulted in a smear of colors — pretty, but not identifiable as a quilt. Oops! Next time, I’ll take my time and take better photos. Uh Oh, Cuz Crew, I’ll be even slower next time. Just sayin’……..

    Huh. Would you believe that I walked out without turning in my Underground Railroad Scavenger Hunt paper before we left? Oh well.

    Sending out a big round of applause to the HAAEQG for the wonderful Quilt Show they put on! Look forward to the next one! You can check out HAAEQG on Facebook HERE.

    I am now bubbling over with lots of great ideas for new quilts and patterns. Now I just have give myself the time to get to use all that inspiration for good, not evil (Waahaahaa!).

    Off to my sewing machine!

    Until next week —

    Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

    Always,

    Tricia @VRD