Category: Tutorials

Quilting Partners · Rose Cards · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

Blog Hop Prizes Update and a VRD Bunny Ears Snack Mat Quilt Tutorial

rosecards2 Comments

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

Another week has passed us by and the only things I’ve sewn recently are my samples for this Bunny Ears Snack Mat tutorial. LOL! I hope you had better luck this past week getting some sewing in. I keep gazing at my collection of VRD Rose Cards as well as petting my fabrics and my sewing machine looks lonely across from me as I write here at my desk, but I just can’t seem to find enough time to actually get something going on my machine. Somehow I need to find a pocket of time — maybe I should sleep less so I can quilt more. But, no, that won’t work for me these days as I really do need those 8 hours of sleep a night. Ho hum…..

Update on Blog Hop Prizes

I just wanted to let everyone know that we are still working on getting everything shipped to Blog Hop Prize Winners. So far the quilts have been shipped, digital pattern collection winners have received their patterns, and prizes graciously being shipped by our lovely sponsors should be in the mail. Physical pattern collections haven’t yet been shipped but should be going out in the next couple days. I have a stack of prizes that also need to get mailed as well as the Kaffe Collection and the Mystery Box.

You may be scratching your head, wondering why it’s taking us so long to get everything sorted out and to the winners. That, my friends, is a complicated topic:

  1. We had around 28 bloggers in addition to our own blog, which really makes 29. There were prize winners on ALL of the blog post. So that’s a lot of information to put together and organize! To make things even slower, we had some winners who never replied to their winner emails, so then we had to randomly select new winners and contact them to get their information. Egads! It literally took weeks to gets all the winners selected and confirmed. Really, I’m not kidding.
  2. Prizes are being shipped from multiple locations — the quilts were shipped from the VRD shop in CA, physical pattern collections will be shipped from our pattern shipping location in MO, digital pattern collections were emailed by moi here in PA, sponsors are shipping prizes from their warehouses and office locations all over the US, and I am shipping prizes and 2 of the Grand Prizes from my little studio here in PA.

It’s crazy when you think of the logistics involved in our Blog Hop — kind of like dancing Swan Lake en pointe while trying to juggle knifes — very sharp knifes!

Happily, we should have everything out in the mail very soon. Winners hare receiving their prizes. Please continue to be patient as we get everything on its way to you.

Now, how about a fun tutorial?

VRD Bunny Ears Snack Mats Tutorial

Nothing says spring like a pair of bouncy little bunnies with extra-long ears! But before I even begin the tutorial, I need to let you know there is an update on the cutting instructions for piece B — you should have enough fabric left over to cut the updated piece, though. Please check the Corrections Page HERE for the new cutting measurement for piece B. Yes, we do have a corrections section at the bottom of our website, villarosadesigns.com, so if you ever find something on a pattern that doesn’t quite look right to you, please check the corrections page for updates.

Get your own Bunny Ears Snack Mat Rose Card physical patterns HERE or digital patterns HERE.

All right! Let’s make some cute bunnies!

The first thing we need is 2 fat quarters. Yep, just 2 FQs makes 2 adorable little Bunny Ears Snack Mats.

I chose these bright and happy spring prints from Cherry Guidry’s Full Bloom collection for Benartex for my Snack Mats.

Time to cut all the pieces out — we’re actually doing the cutting for both Snack Mats at the same time. While I cut, I’m using my ancient homemade flannel board to keep my pieces from getting lost.

Did you miss my flannel board tutorial last week? You can find it HERE.

PSST! Don’t forget to switch your pieces before your start sewing so the bunny fabric in one block becomes the background in the other!

I know it doesn’t look like much yet, but here are my pieces all laid out for both blocks and ready to sew together. Having a small flannel board is great because I can just take it right to my sewing machine from my cutting table, without dropping or losing a thing.

As all the pieces are cut and ready to go, let’s start sewing these little Bunnies together!

Place a background square right sides together on the top left corner of the Bunny Head rectangle. Draw a diagonal line and sew on the line. Then cut 1/4″ away from the sewn line and press the “flippy triangle” open. Yup, that’s what I call them — “flippy triangles” — you know, I only use the technical terms here on the blog. LOL!

To make thing easier later, press the seam towards the Bunny.

Sew “flippy corner” on the top right corner and press this seam towards the Bunny Head too. Repeat to make identical “flippy corners” on the second mat.

Voila! Now we have 2 cute little Bunny Heads (with a crazy mess for Ears right now)!

Speaking of Bunny Ears, let’s make some! Place the background squares right sides together with the Bunny Ear rectangles, lining up the outside edges at the bottom. Draw diagonal lines as shown — keep in mind you are making mirror images. Sew on the lines and cut 1/4″ away from the drawn lines. Open the “flippy corners” and press the seams towards the background fabric.

Our Bunny Ears aren’t quite finished yet because we have to add some top “flippy corners,” too. The background squares used for the top of the Ears are larger than the squares used at the bottom in the previous step so be careful not to get the top and bottom squares mixed up.

Again, we are making mirror images. Repeat this step for the second block as well. Press the seams toward the background fabric.

We now have Bunny Ears! Yay!

Next, sew the background strip between the Bunny Ears and press the seams towards the center background strip. Repeat for the second block.

Almost there, just a few more steps!

Now sew the Ear section to the top of the Bunny Head for both blocks. If you pressed the “flippy corners” towards the Bunny Head in the first step, above, then your corners should nestle together nicely.

Ladies and Gents, we now have a Bunny, or rather 2 Bunnies!

Do you see how the green stands out and the floral fabric recedes? Aren’t fabrics so much fun to play with???

The last thing to do is sew the narrow background strip to the left side of the block and the large background piece to the right side of the block. Repeat for the second block.

And there you have it — Bunny Ears Snack Mats! Next up would be layering the Mats with batting and backing, quilting them, and adding binding.

Don’t forget to label your Snack Mats!

I hope you enjoyed this super cute tutorial and have fun making your very own Bunny Ears Snack Mats. They are quick and easy to make, using only 2 fat quarters, and are great little something-somethings for all your pals, quilty ones and non-quilty ones alike! Long live cute little Bunnies! Hurray!

Until next Thursday —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD

Tutorials · villa rosa designs

A Tutorial for Making Your Own Quilt Block Flannel Board, What I’ve been Up To (No Good, Probably!), and a Giveaway!

rosecards37 Comments

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

Now that we’re past the middle of April, spring is finally springing around here, although it’s still either cold or rainy. We’ve had so much rain here in NW PA, there is a lake in the field back behind my house. And the fun thing is that a small group (flock? gaggle?) of Canadian geese have claimed it as their very own little oasis! Silly goosies! But I do love to hear them honking out there to each other and it’s fun to see them waddling around. The lake is starting to dissipate, but we keep getting enough rain that it refills, so right now the geese are in luck.

Speaking of April, I know it’s spring when my Friday Quilt group starts meeting again. We skip January and February because those months are historically our snowiest months and usually start up again in March. I didn’t get a chance to mention my group back in March because we were all busy with the Blog Hop.

I know I’ve talked about these amazing quilting gals before and I’m so thrilled that we’re back together once a month again. I want to do a shout out to the Friday Gals — you know who you are — Hey Ladies! (If you want to know a little bit more about these Friday ladies, you can go HERE.)

You might wonder why I am talking about these gals, but for the last 2 years, we’ve been doing Villa Rosa Designs quilt projects. But his year, everyone wanted somethng a little different and everyone agreed that they wanted to go back to a sampler quilt again. It’s been quite a few years since we’ve done a year-long sampler project, so it’s time.

Farm Girl Vintage by Lori Holt of Bee in My Bonnet Co. was an easy choice for 2024 because of the fun blocks in both 6″ and 12″ finished sizes as well as a plethora of terrific projects in which you can mix and match blocks. In fact, Lori has 2 other books, Farm Girl Vintage 2 and Vintage Christmas which also use both 6″ and 12″ blocks. And guess what that means??? All the projects are interchangeable among these 3 books! WOW! In addition to some other fun quilt books, Lori has a bunch of super patterns and even a book about scrap quilting called Scrappiness is Happiness. If you’re not familiar with Lori’s designs, you should check them out.

She is a fabric designer for Riley Blake as well as an author and quilt designer. I’ve designed quilts using a few of her collections over the years — they were lots of fun. Very scrap happy and bright with a vintage vibe. You can find out more about Lori Holt HERE.

Beginning last month in March, we are going to work our way through the 12″ and 6″ blocks (as well as the delightful tractor block) in the book by making a mix of 6″ and 12″ blocks each month until December.

Here are blocks from our first get together.

I like to offer my own sampler layout when we do a year-long sampler quilt project, and this year is no different! I designed 2 different settings — one as a throw/twin and one as a full/queen. Of course, the Farm Girl Vintage book has lots of fun projects of all sizes, too, which means everyone has options! And boy, do I LOVE to have options!

I’ll give you a sneak peak at the center of my full/queen quilt (without the borders — I’ll get those on someday!). I chose a scrappy blue and white farmhouse-y color scheme and I really love how it turned out. What do you think?

After making VRD quilts for the last couple years, we couldn’t entirely abandon our VRD projects, of course, so for 2024 I set up a series of VRD quilt challenges. (You know, this could be a great idea for quilt guilds and groups or even quilt shops — just sayin’……)

Anyway, here is our challenge schedule:

June 2024 — Fat Quarter Project

August 2024 — Panel Project

October 2024 — 5″ or 10″ Charm Square Project

December 2024 — 2 1/2″ Strip Project

Of course, there are a few rules:

  1. You must complete a quilt top before we meet that month
  2. You may not use projects from classes 2022 or 2023

I’ll try to take photos when we have the Challenge quilt reveals, so you’ll have to stop back to see what VRD projects the Friday Gals create.

In our most recent meeting, our group made portable flannel boards to accommodate 12″ blocks so I thought I’d show you how we made them because everyone should have a small flannel board. This size is super to carry back and forth from your cutting area to your sewing machine or even to a quilt class, retreat, or sew day.

Make Your Own Quilt Block Flannel Board

Here’s a flannel board I made maybe 15-20 years ago. This board has seen a lot of wear and tear and the corners are all bent up, but it’s definitely stood the test of time and use because the only thing I’ve really had to do is to tighten and re-tape the fabric on the back once or twice. This board is around 12″ x 18″ and is made out of a heavy duty cardboard. It is great for smaller blocks, but doesn’t quite hold the pieces for a 12″ block, so that’s why I had the idea to make one sized for 12″ blocks.

What You Need:

A piece of sturdy cardboard or a sheet of foam core board

A piece of neutral tonal or solid quality flannel fabric as large as the board you want to make plus an additional 3-4 inches all around.

Duct tape.

I chose to use a piece of foam core from Dollar Tree (LOVE Dollar Tree!) which will actually give me 2 boards about 15″ x 15″ and a leftover long rectangle for some other project. Because the boards aren’t exactly 30″ long long, my finished boards won’t be exactly 15″ square, but that’s okay, it’s close enough for jazz. If you want your boards to be perfect squares, go ahead and measure the length of your foam core board and divide that number in half. Use a ruler to draw lines to make 2 equal boards. If you want 1 big board, you can use the whole piece of foam core, just keep in mind it will be kind of clunky to carry back and forth from your cutting area to you sewing machine to your pressing area. But if it works for you, go for it.

One you’ve drawn your lines, time to cut on the lines with a utility knife or scissors. BE CAREFUL! We don’t need any accidents on this step.

Here’s 1 board around 15″ x 15″, which will allow me to lay out the pieces for a 12″ block (or smaller). Now let’s get our flannel fabric ready. I suggest pressing it so the flannel is nice and flat before you put it on your board.

Okay, lay your flannel fabric on a flat surface with the wrong side facing up. Center your board. Then fold one side up and tape it firmly to the board. Repeat for the opposite side. Make it smooth and taut before you tape it to the back of the board.

Next up, we are going to fold the corners in on 1 of the remaining 2 sides and then tape the side to the board. Repeat for the other side, pulling the fabric smooth and taut before taping that last side. I used an extra piece of tape on each side to help keep the flannel nice and tight.

Voila! Here it is — a board block big enough to layout a 12″ or smaller block!

Wasn’t that super easy? Now you know how to make a flannel board, you can make them in any size you want, just make sure that your flannel fabric is 3-4 inches bigger all the way around your board so you have enough to wrap around and tape. (Psst! Flannel boards are great activity and story activities for kiddos, too! Use left over fabric and felt to make letters, numbers, and story pieces to delight any kiddo.)

One More Thing Before You Go…..And a Giveaway!

I’m excited to share some BIG NEWS with you — I just finished putting together my 6th book in print! Yippee! Kudos! AWESOME! (Go me!)

It’s called Plan Design Quilt and it is kind of like a workbook for designing quilts on paper. I do design a lot of my projects using Electric Quilt 8 software, but I also scribble blocks and quilt settings down whenever inspiration strikes. Usually I jot ideas down on snippets of paper, sticky notes, napkins, or whatever, and then I lose them only to find them at some later time after I have already forgotten all about that idea. Kind of disorganized, I know.

So I created this book for myself because it gives me someplace to do my little scribbles and keep them all in one place. It’s kind of cool to create a book that fulfills your own needs and then share it with the world. I tell myself that if it’s something I can use, then there are other quilters out there who might need this too. So I designed this workbook-style book with lots of space to doodle and draw quilt blocks and settings, to jot down notes, try out/add fabric swatches, and more. You can find Plan Design Quilt here. Woo Hoo!

But wait — there’s more!

To kick off this new book, I’m going to give away a copy of Plan Design Quilt right here on the VRD blog, Villa Rosa Quilts. All you have to do is leave me a comment telling me your favorite color scheme for making a quilt. I apologize, but this giveaway will be for US residents only. I haven’t decided yet if offering this book in ebook format would actually be helpful for people. Your thoughts?

Oh, almost forgot! You have from today, April 25th through Thursday, May 2nd to leave a comment. I will select a winner randomly.

Well, that’s it for me.

Take a little time to quilt this week!

Until next Thursday —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD

Rose Cards · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

VRD Eclipses Quilt Tutorial and a Little More Quilt Math…

rosecards9 Comments

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

Wow! I can’t believe that it’s been 2 weeks since the end of the Blog Hop. We are still getting all the winners organized, so please be patient with us. I promise, just as soon as all the winners have been notified and we have shipping information, then I can start getting prizes out to winners. It will probably be done in several stages, so hang in there if you have been notified that you are a winner. Thank you!

On another note, are you excited about next week’s eclipse on April 8th? Are you in a place to see it or are you traveling somewhere for viewing? I am very excited that NW Pennsylvania will be able to see it, so all I have to do is step outside and look up. Fingers crossed that it isn’t cloudy — that would be a total disappointment if we all can’t see it. Yes, I did finally get my eclipse-viewing glasses, so I’m all set now.

In celebration of this eclipse, I created my own version of Creative Sewlution’s Eclipses which was one of March’s new patterns. I had to hustle to get the top and photos done for today, but I did manage it. And, boy, am I glad I did — it is an amazing design and I can’t wait to show you how to put it all together!

Didn’t get your Eclipses pattern yet? You can find it HERE as a physical pattern OR you can find it HERE as a digital pattern.

But before we do (sorry about the teaser…), I have one more thing to talk about.

A Teeny Tiny Bit of Quilt Math

Have you ever looked at a big quilt and imagined it as a smaller size so you could use it on a wall? The Eclipses quilt finishes at 59″ x 75″, which is a throw quilt or a REALLY BIG wall quilt. I definitely do not have a big empty wall to hang a quilt of this size, but I really really wanted to make Eclipses.

So, what to do???

Why, I’ll make the quilt smaller so it fits my space! Brilliant!

Have you ever made a quilt smaller or larger than the pattern? There are lots of different ways to alter the size of a quilt, but I thought I’d tell you how I did it with Eclipses.

OH NO — IT’S MATH!!!!!!! RUN!!!!!!!! LOL!

Sorry, couldn’t resist. Teheheh…. You know how much I LOVE LOVE LOVE quilt math!

You can resize most simple quilt patterns by dividing each measurement by whatever fraction you want to make the quilt.

Let’s say I had a 60″ x 60″ quilt with 12″ blocks. No sashing, no borders. Just blocks. Why look, here it is!

Hmmm, that’s just too big. I want to make a nice little wall quilt exactly like the pattern, but half as big. So if the quilt pattern quilt finishes at 60″ x 60″, then I think cutting the dimensions in half to 30″ x 30″ would suit my needs.

So, here’s where the fun begins.

Time to divide all the measurements by 1/2. My 12″ blocks will now finish at 6″. I still need to make the same number of blocks, though, which is 25.

Our repeated block is actually a humble Shoofly block. Isn’t it interesting what happens when you put the blocks side by side without any sashing? Hmmmmmm. Something to play with another day.

There are a couple different ways to figure out the new cutting measurements to make the 6″ finished block.

  1. Redraw the block on graph paper
  2. Divide the original cutting measurements in half (for example a 4″ square would become a 2″ square)
  3. Recreate the quilt in Electric Quilt’s awesome Electric Quilt 8 software and the program will do the math for you!

I don’t usually use graph paper for designing. Most of the time I use a combination of #2 and #3. It also helps if you have some experience with quilt designing.

Shoofly is an easy one to resize, which is why I chose it for this illustration. Because it’s a Nine Patch block, we know that each of the 9 squares in the block will end up being the same size, so we will divide 6″ by 3 (3 squares across, 3 squares down) which equals 2″. Each “square” should finish at 2″. So, we will cut the squares at 2 1/2″ x 2 1/2″ (the 1/2″ is for the seam allowance, so the finished size of the square is 2″ x 2″).

Now what about the Half Square Triangle (HSTs) in each corner? They have to finish at 2″ x 2″ in order to fit properly into the 6″ finished quilt block.

Aha! You do need to know a little bit about quilt math here. Rule of thumb for HSTs is to add 7/8″ to the finished size (to make room for the seam allowance and cutting). So we’ll simply just add 7/8″ to our 2″ finished squares and we get a cutting measurement of 2 7/8″ x 2 7/8″ for our HSTs. Not sure how to sew HSTs? Check out our 2023 Quilt Block Basics Series HERE. Some folks even like to cut their squares a bit larger and then trim them down to the correct size. Do likewise if you prefer.

Something to remember — not all quilts can easily be resized. Who wants to work with pieces that end up needing to be cut 3 5/22″ in size??? Definitely NOT me!

Now that I’ve totally confused you (sorry, not sorry), let’s do the tutorial for Eclipses — the method of construction is the same whether it’s full-sized or mini.

VRD Eclipses Quilt Tutorial

Here are my yummy fabrics for my Eclipses quilt — 1895 Watercolors from Hoffman Fabrics with an 885 Dot rich blue for the background. I love the Dot batik for the background because it actually has little pops of other colors to add lots of interest.

So let’s get started by cutting out all the pieces for the quilt. I do like to cut everything for the blocks before I sew. I save cutting borders until the end if a quilt has borders, though. That way, I don’t have to stop between steps and keep cutting the fabrics I need next. It saves time for me as well as keeping all my pieces organized.

First up is to add yellow/orange “flippy corners” to my grey rectangles. I draw a diagonal line from corner to opposite corner and SEW ON THE LINE. I really like to use my Frixion Pens for this step. I love to have a lot of different pen colors to use on different colors of fabrics — besides, lots of colors just makes me happy. Here, I’m using red.

Trim 1/4″ away from the sewn line. Then open and press.

But wait! We’re not done with our “flippy corner” yet! We’re going to add another, smaller “flippy corner” to our yellow/orange corner.

Uh oh! Now what? I won’t be able to see my red Frixion pen on the blue background. Sadly, there isn’t a white Frixion pen, so I use my trusty Bohn Chalk Pencil, which is white so it will show up on the dark blue background square.

Okay, layer that background square on the yellow/orange corner. Draw a diagonal line from corner to opposite corner and SEW ON THE LINE once again. Trim 1/4″ beyond the line. Then open and press.

Go ahead and repeat for the all of the large grey rectangles on 2 sides.

Moving on, we have MORE “flippy corners to do”. In fact, we have to add “flippy corners” to ALL of the rectangles. Add background corners to the yellow/orange rectangles and yellow/orange rectangles to the narrow grey ones.

Sew the 2 units above together into a block. Repeat for all the narrow rectangles.

Yay! Here’s my favorite part — slapping them up on the design wall and rearranging them until I like what I see. Make sure to follow the diagrams on the pattern so your blocks are lined up correctly. Don’t forget the sashing and side borders.

I like what I see — the orange is distributed nicely and adds a good pop of color. Let’s SEW! I am going to start with the left side of the quilt, but I am taking the left background sashing down until I’m ready for it in a few steps.

I’m going to sew the blocks bottom to top to make a vertical row (which might feel a little weird if you’re used to sewing horizontal rows). Don’t forget to press your row. (One thing I really like about working with batiks is that they press so crisply that I don’t need any pressing spray to flatten them, which saves a bit of time). I am going to go ahead and repeat this step with the right side blocks.

Now I’m going to sew the narrow background sashing strip between my vertical block rows. I’ll look one more time before I start pinning so that everything is lined up.

I like to make a crease in the center of my pieced strip and the sashing strip because it helps keeps things aligned. Then I match up the center creases and put in a pin. Next I pin the ends together and add a few pins in between the center pin and the end pins. This helps to distribute any fullness and make my pieces more plumb.

After pressing the seam towards the background sashing strip, I’m going make a center crease in the right side pieced strip. Then I’ll use those center creases again to line up the right side pieced vertical strip with the narrow background sashing strip. By lining up the center creases again, this will help to make sure both sides of the pieced strips are across from each other and not skewed.

In the photo below you can see how well my blocks are lining up by matching the center creases.

WOW! It’s coming together and starting to look like the cover quilt. Yippee!

Now let’s add wide background sashing strips to the left and the right of my quilt section. Again, crease and line up the centers.

Whew! First section of the quilt is done, now let’s repeat for the right half of the quilt.

Almost there……….now I’m going to sew the right section to the center wide background sashing, creasing those centers and matching them up so everything fits together nicely.

VOILA! Here is my wall quilt sized Eclipses quilt top. I wonder if I can get it finished by Monday the 8th?

I really like how it turned out! What do you think?

Well, that’s it for me this week. I hope you get to see the eclipse on Monday, April 8th. Here’s hoping the skies won’t be cloudy so we can all breathlessly witness time standing still for a moment.

Until next week —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD

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

VRD Pacific Grove Quilt Tutorial and Getting Ready for Our Villa Rosa Blog Hop

rosecardsLeave a comment

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

Mother Nature sure has been trying hard to confuse us up here in NW Pennsylvania! We’ve had temps in the 60’s! Can you believe it? I wouldn’t, except I’ve been reading the temp on the thermometer. Yesterday, I even had peepers (tree frogs) on my basement window in the rain. This is WAY too early for the little dears to be awake! I’m wondering what Mother Nature has in store for us in March and April. Who knows? Maybe we’ll have snow in June?!?

I’ve been on a quilting roll since my curated list of Spring VRD Rose Card patterns a couple weeks ago (you can find the post HERE if you missed it). So I wanted to do another tutorial this week. I reached into my magic project crate and pulled out Pacific Grove.

But first, let’s chat about the upcoming Blog Hop!

Villa Rosa Designs Blog Hop March 14-21

Well, it’s now officially 2 weeks until our VRD Fast & More Fun Blog Hop, which kicks off right here on March 14th. I hope you’re getting excited about it.

Prizes keep coming in — it’s like Christmas around here! Except it’s not for me at all, instead — it’s ALL FOR YOU.

So far we have 2 AWESOME Grand Prizes lined up. Nope, I’m not going to show them to you yet. You’ll have to wait until March 14th for our Blog Hop kickoff post. Everything will be explained at that time, I promise.

We now have 26 bloggers participating in the Hop. And who knows? Maybe more if anyone comes late to the party.

We’ve also got the most fantastic and generous Sponsors for the event — Hoffman, Moda, Jaftex, Timeless Treasures, Electric Quilt, Banyan Batiks, C&T Publishing, Hancock’s of Paducah, and Fox Chapel/Landauer.

So, are you excited yet???

Remember, the fun begins March 14th right here on the Villa Rosa blog. So make sure you stop by and hop along with us for the week.

Okay, now let’s get to the quilt tutorial!

VRD Pacific Grove Quilt Tutorial

I’ve been wanting a reason to make Pacific Grove for a while now. I’ve always thought the quilt on the cover of the pattern looked like a work of art. What do you think? Wouldn’t it look amazing framed and hung on a wall? On my wall???

Finally, today is the day to finally make my very own Pacific Grove work of art.

Get your own Pacific Grove physical pattern HERE or a digital pattern HERE.

I’m using some gorgeous fabrics from the Wildflowers Spectrum Digital Print collection by Hoffman. Did you know Hoffman did digital prints in addition to their amazing batiks?

Special thanks to Hoffman for providing the fabrics for this tutorial.

Before we get started, I do want to say that digital prints can be a little finicky so it’s important to start with a new sharp needle in your machine. If you use pins when you sew, make sure they’re sharp. Why? Because you don’t want to break any threads. Take a look at this photo. Do you see area inside the red circle? See the 2 broken threads? You don’t want this to happen to your quilt because it will probably be visible on the front, not just on the back. Lucky for me, this was in the seam allowance. Whew!

So, let’s get start by cutting the main print and the background fabric. I kind of don’t want to cut this lovely fabric up, but I know it will look fabulous in the Pacific Grove pattern.

Now that the pieces are cut and ready to sew, it’s time to assemble 2 side units. Easy piezy!

Next up is putting together the center of the quilt. I really like how this quilt is coming together into vertical rows. That makes it really simple to put together. And I’m not having to match up a bunch of seams. Yay!

Now that the sides and the center are made, I’m going to work on the purple background strips. Here you can see in the first photo how I creased the center of the side strip and the center of the sashing strip. Then I matched those creased centers and put a pin right there. After I found the centers, I went to the outside edges and lined them up. You’ll see in the second photo that not only do I place a vertical pin, I also place an horizontal pin . That horizontal pin helps to keep my strips straight instead of bowing as I sew (I learned this little trick a long time ago from a quilter friend when I was a new quilter). After the center and the outsides are pinned, I always add a few more pins in between to keep everything from shifting when I sew.

Yay! Here you can see the design taking shape now that I’ve sewed the purple strips to the sides of the quilt center.

Next I’m gong to sew the side units to the center. Again, I will crease and match my centers. I think it’s looking really lovely with these digital prints.

Time to add purple background strips to the sides. It has a bit of an Art Deco feel to it, doesn’t it? Or maybe a stained glass window?

Time to sew background strips to the top and bottom of the quilt. Isn’t it looking amazing???

The borders are next up. What’s cool about this pattern is that you add the top and bottom borders on first before the side borders. When I did the purple strips, I added the sides first. But it does make sense to do it this way because it uses the fabric more efficiently — you don’t have to piece the top and bottom borders if you add them first. Ingenious!

Here is the finished quilt top. It looks like an Art Deco stained glass window garden to me!

With so much open space, I’m just itching to starting machine quilting it, but that will have to wait for a while, I’m afraid.

Duet Quilt Tutorial Update

Last week I was debating whether to add a border or not to my Duet quilt top. Then I took a deep breath and just added that outer border. I chose a light batik because Duet felt a bit dark to me. The binding will frame it all nicely — it’s dark blue.

TWO WEEKS TO GO AND COUNTING DOWN……..until the Blog Hop. Get ready.

Take care and Happy Quilting.

Until next week —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @ VRD

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

VRD Duet Quilt Tutorial and a Little Blog Hop Teaser

rosecards8 Comments

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

I hope you were as inspired as I was after seeing my curated Spring VRD Rose Card pattern list last week. If you missed the post, you can find it HERE. I was SEW inspired, that I used a new blog quilt tutorial as an excuse to make a pretty new quilt top. (Nah, you’re right — I didn’t really need an excuse. LOL!)

But, first, let’s talk a little bit about our upcoming VRD Blog Hop!

VRD Blog Hop March 14-21

Oh my gosh! The Hop is only weeks away. I hope I’m ready in time. Of course, I’ll be ready on time.

I thought I’d tell you a little bit about some of prizes that are coming in for the Hop from our awesome event Sponsors.

Here’s a glimpse of the goodies that have arrived so far! I can’t wait to send them off to the winners. Maybe you’ll be a winner this year. All you have to do is visit all of the blog posts each day to register for prizes! Lucky you! Yippee!

I am also happy to share that our International friends will have a lot more variety this year for prizes as several of our Sponsors are able to ship directly to you. I’m getting really excited about the Hop. I hope that you are too. Don’t forget to tell a friend…..or two about it (or everyone you know!) so they can Hop right along with you.

Be right here on March 14th for the kickoff to our week-long Blog Hop in celebration of Villa Rosa Designs and all of our bloggers and sponsors. Be here or be square (yeah, you knew I was going to say that.).

Okay, now let’s make a quilt!

VRD Duet Quilt Tutorial

After last week’s post, I just kept telling myself I had to do a new quilt tutorial for the blog. So I dove into my big magic crate of project kits and pulled out a Bali Pop to make Duet.

You can get your own physical Duet pattern HERE or a digital pattern HERE.

I’m really loving this Aurora Bali Pop for Duet. Isn’t it just so yummy with blue, green, teal, purple and all the shades in between. Special thanks to Hoffman for providing the fabric for this project.

Sadly, we don’t have the Aurora Bali Pop in stock at the VRD online shop, but we do have other great options you can use to make this quilt. You can check out our 2 1/2″ strip sets HERE.

Let’s get started!

The first thing I did was pair up my strips. You’d think it would be easy to do this — pair a dark with a light — but most strip sets do not have an equal number of each. So that meant I had to use the mediums as either a light paired with a dark or as a dark paired with a light. Here you can see my tangle of strips as I pair them up. And you can see my unique way of keeping my pairs together by stacking them at different angles. Sometimes I don’t know where my ideas come from. And I don’t really care as long as they work.

Happily, this strange stack did actually work and I took it to my sewing machine to sew my paired strips together. At the machine, right before I stitched each pair, I cut the strips in half. Or you could cut them in half after you sew them together. I chose to do it first because I really don’t enjoy sewing long strips together. Then I sewed and sewed using the assembly line approach until I had all the pairs sewn together. Check out my tangle of sewn strips in the second photo. Yikes!

Now that my strip pairs are all sewn together, it’s time to sew the 2 matching strip sets into a quartet. No, they really weren’t tied up in knots. I just started at one end and kept working my way through the assembly line, sewing one quartet together after another. Surprisingly, it was a pretty speedy process.

Woohoo! All those quartets are sewn and now I’m going to press the seams on each strip set going in the same direction. This will actually save me some time in a couple of steps.

I really love sewing with batiks. Now.

HOnestly, I’ve come late to the batik party, but I’m here now and that’s what counts. For a long time, my friends Mary Lee and Leslie, were always ooh-ing and awe-ing over the latest batiks while I was always like — okay, pretty fabric.

I’ve learned since then that batiks truly are a joy to sew with. They are smooth and supple, even crisp. And the colors — oh my goodness!

I have found that I do need a brand new needle when I’m sewing a batik project (yes, I know I should start every project with a brand new needle……). Batiks have a much tighter weave and a higher thread count than regular cottons. I have found that a used needle pokes holes in the fabric and may even break threads whereas a sharp needle kind of glides between the fibers. Food for thought……..

Let’s press!

Now all of my quartets are pressed, it’s time to cut the units. Do you stack your pieced strip units for cutting? I do, and here’s a technique I learned a long time ago — stagger the strips when you layer then so that seams are not sitting on top of each other. Cutting is a lot easier and more accurate when you are not trying to cut through a big lump of seams.

I stacked 4 quartets on top of each other when I cut the units. Then I just picked up the units from each quartet and stacked them together. It was kind of like dealing playing cards, in a way. Then I stacked up the units, keeping each quartet together. Easy piezy! Now back to the machine for more sewing!

Next I’m going to take 2 matching units and sew them end to end, making sure that the alternating fabrics are consistent. Then I will sew the second set of units exactly the same way as the first one.

Because I pressed all my seams in each quartet the same direction, sewing the units together is really easy as the seams matched up and nestled together (awwww! They’re so sweet!) when I layered them right sides together.

Quick! Sew, sew, sew!

Yay! Time to finish the blocks! I am going to sew the 2 units from the same quartet together side by side, flipping a unit so the 2 fabrics alternate completely throughout the block. 19 more to go….

Blocks all done! I’m going to press them one more time and then it’s time to do the block shuffle on my flannel board.

Okay, here’s my final block arrangement. The purples and the lights were a challenge to find a way to lay them out so everyone was happy. What do you think?

Back to the sewing machine to sew the blocks into rows and the rows together to make the quilt top.

I’m very pleased with how Duet turned out. I’m considering about adding a border to make it larger. Hmm, methinks I need to think about this a while longer….

Like a lot of our VRD patterns, Duet worked up quickly and I would say it’s probably a one day project to make the quilt top. It’s great to have some one day projects tucked away in your back pocket to pull out when you need a quilt in a hurry. I hope Duet will be one of them for you.

Well, that’s it for me today. One marathon quilt in a day is enough for me for now.

See you next Thursday, same time, same place.

Until then —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @ VRD

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

VRD Corners Quilt Tutorial

rosecards5 Comments

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

I hope you are all staying warm and cozy, holed up in your sewing room making beautiful quilts! I am happy to say that I’ve been able to get some quilting in since the beginning of the year and thought I’d share a fun tutorial for a terrific small quilt, perfect as a baby quilt.

But before I get started with the actual tutorial, let me share a little bit about one of my favorite things about my job in the quilt industry. I actually wear many hats (don’t we all?) and one of the coolest ones is making sample quilts for fabric companies. Recently I whipped up this adorable Corners quilt featuring the Love and Learning collection by Hoffman. It’s a really sweet collection featuring a charming alphabet panel in your choice of light or dark background. I saw that darling collection and immediately thought it would look great in Molly Cook’s Corners Rose Card pattern.

Here is what the quilt looked like as a digital image before I actually made it:

Don’t you just love it? Yes, it has a little bit of pink in it, but don’t you think it would work for a boy or a girl? I do!

Anyway, I made a sample of this quilt for Hoffman and as I made it, I photographed the steps so I could create a new tutorial for the blog just for you, our loyal readers.

Do you have Molly’s Corners pattern yet? If not, you can get it as a physical pattern HERE or as a digital pattern HERE.

Let’s get started on our first quilt tutorial for 2024! Yay!

VRD Corners Quilt Tutorial

So the first thing you need to do is gather up your fabrics and your pattern. The first image shows the alphabet panel, the second image is the background and coordinates, and the last photo shows the binding, backing, and accent fabrics. Oh what fun!

After you’ve got your supplies together, then it’s time to cut each alphabet letter out of the panel one at a time. I don’t know if you can see in the first photo above, but each letter includes an item that begins with the specific letter as well as the item’s name. 

Time to cut! I used a square ruler the size of the square called for in the pattern (or at least I thought I was). That way all I had to do was center each design and cut around all four sides of the ruler. Unfortunately the letters in the last row of the panel were wider than the rest and I ended up having to cut some of the designs a bit, but made sure the letter was not cut off.

OOPS! Then I realized my ruler wasn’t the right size. Luckily it was a bit bigger, so I could trim those squares down to the correct size.

Whew! Done with trimming down 26 squares. That took me a little while. Make sure you cut your squares to the correct size the first time!

Moving on……….

Next it’s time cut a bunch of strips and sew them together before we cut the units for the half frames. Sewing long strips together is not one of my personal favorite things to do. What’s your least favorite part of quilting?

Okay, the strips are sewn into pairs with a background strip sewn to a colored strip. Next let’s cut all of the units out of the strip sets. To create the corner unit for the block, you will have to sew a rectangle to the squares as in the second photo.

All right, now the hard part — to achieve the same layout as Molly’s sample quilt on the front of the pattern (see above), we will be making 4 versions of the same block.

For most of you, this won’t seem like a big deal, but there will be a few quilters who have trouble getting the right block orientation. Well, I am included in this group, definitely. Blame it on being a lefty for me. 

I strongly urge you to use some kind of flannel board. Make one block at a time and place them in their proper order on your flannel board so you can more easily see the orientation of each block as you sew them together. 

I did try sewing a group of blocks together using my usual speed sewing method, but that ended up being a disaster. I had to do a lot of ripping out and rearranging the pieces of my blocks. So, after that, I made one block at a time.

Once I had all my blocks up on my flannel board and double checked their orientation, I started sewing the blocks into rows and then sewed the rows together into the quilt center. I was holding my breath the whole time………

Once I knew I had conquered the center, it was time to add borders. I added the side borders first and then sewed the top and bottom borders on last.

Woohoo! The top is done! Time to layer, machine quilt, do binding, and add a label. Oh! My last thing to do will be shipping the quilt to where it needs to go. It will come back eventually…………

Have you made the Corners quilt before? Do you have any tips to share?

Update on Decluttering

Before I go, I wanted to give a little update on my decluttering project. I started with my cutting table first. Lately it’s been more of a storage surface than a cutting surface. 

Holy moly! I found several groupings of fabrics paired with patterns as well as yardage and stacks of fat quarters. Some loose patterns, too. Ugh! Now I have to put the fabrics away and figure out where to house the projects. Decisions, decisions! This is why I avoid decluttering — I have way too much stuff and not enough space. 

I need to start pulling stuff out I don’t love anymore and finding it all new homes. Time to start purging my stash or I will never ever find an organization system that works for me because you can only stack so many plastic crates. Well, I’m going to keep plugging away, so stop in next week to see what else I’ve accomplished.

Sew. Laugh. Purge. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @ VRD

Guest Bloggers · Rose Cards · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

VRD Lickety Split Quilt Tutorial

rosecards2 Comments

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

PSST!

Hey, it’s me, Molly!

I’m stealing the blog from Tricia this week!

I’m here to talk about one of my own favorite patterns, Lickety Split. I designed this fun and fast pattern using only 10 fat quarters and a background fabric. When I was sewing it up the first time, it went together really quick — hence the name “Lickety Split”.

You can find the Lickety Split pattern HERE.

There’s also a digital download pattern, too. You can find the digital pattern it HERE.

Today I’m using fabric from the Morning Light collection by Northcott, which features digital prints. They do a good job with their digital prints and the colors are just so beautiful. These are definitely my colors — Northcott must have been thinking about me when they designed them. LOL!

Guess what??? We created Lickety Split kits just like my fabrics, above. You can find them HERE.

Or maybe you just want to grab some of your own Morning Light Fabrics? You can find the collection HERE at the VRD shop. Be warned — they’re going fast and when they’re gone, they’re gone. So get ’em while they’re hot!

Let’s get started!

Lickety Split Quilt Tutorial

So first things first (well, after you find your fabrics, of course), you need to cut out your rectangles. Grab your fat quarters, and cut them into strips. Then subcut the strips into rectangles. You’ll have a narrow strip leftover — you can use it in another project.

Next it’s time to cut your background pieces. I cut my big pieces first. Then I used the leftover background pieces to cut the smaller/narrower pieces.

Molly’s Tip: Go ahead and pair up your rectangles so the same 2 fabrics are sewn together in each block like I did.

Or scrap it up and be totally random! You do you!

Here, you can see how I stacked up my fat quarter rectangles with the background strips. Now I’m ready to take all my block pieces to my sewing machine. No need to get up and down to get fabrics, because they will all be right next to my machine.

Yay! Time for the fun part — sewing the blocks together! Make sure you sew the pieces all the same for each block or else you will have blocks going in all kinds of directions. Silly blocks!

Look! Here’s a block AND it went together Lickety Split!

Lay out your blocks, turning every other block sideways. The 1st, 3rd, and 5th rows will be the same layout while the 2nd, 4th, and 6th rows will be the same layout.

Sew your rows together and — TA DA — your Lickety Split top is done. Now it’s time to layer, quilt, and bind. And don’t forget your label!

Check out these other color combinations of Lickety Split. Which one is your favorite?

Anna Maria Horner collection
Hoffman collection
Wonderland by Keiki Goke
Wonder by Windham fabrics

Don’t forget to post your Lickety Split quilt pictures on our Facebook page. I can’t wait to see them!

That’s it from me.

Until next time —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Later,

Molly

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

VRD Beatrice Quilt Tutorial and the Fall 2023 Hoffman Project Catalog

rosecards4 Comments

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

I hope you are all getting some sewing and quilting tucked in around your busy fall schedule. I don’t know about you, but if I don’t get regular access to my sewing machine, I get — well, grumpy. I am not kidding. I have found over the years that if I don’t get time to devote to my creative endeavors, I become out of sorts — you can ask my family. LOL! So when I get short-tempered, the best cure is sewing and quilting, even if it’s only a half hour here or twenty minutes there, I absolutely have to have time to be creative.

So I must say that using the excuse of creating a series of fall quilt tutorials with all these glorious Hoffman batik fabric collections, I am feeding my creative soul AND at the same time, I have rekindled my interest in getting back into quilting after basically taking the summer off. Of course, the next part of my making a quilt top or two a week, is to actually get them layered, quilted, bound, labeled — FINISHED. I have started this process by going to my local quilt shop, Homespun Treasures, to pin three of the recent quilts, and now they are ready for machine quilting. I use the tables in the classroom to layer my quilts and maybe I check out the new fabrics while I’m there….

But first, I have another Villa Rosa Designs Rose Card quilt tutorial, Beatrice, for you!

VRD Beatrice Quilt Tutorial

Ever since Beatrice came out earlier this year, I’ve been eager to make it. I love that it pairs two classic blocks — a Rail Fence and a Friendship Star (which is really a Nine Patch block in disguise) — together. You can check out our Rail Fence post and Nine Patch post, which are part of our Quilt Block Basics series, for more block fun and inspiration.

I also love how the Friendship Star blocks are arranged in diagonal rows cascading through woven Rail Fence blocks in a less-than-typical arrangement. Beatrice finishes at a generous 54″ x 72,” which is a very nice-sized throw quilt.

I hope you’ll give this one a try!

Get Beatrice HERE

Let’s take a look at the gorgeous Hoffman Bali Batik collection, Homestead, I am using for my Beatrice quilt. Ask for it at your favorite quilt shop or online retailer!

Isn’t this collection delicious? I added an 1895 Watercolor batik as my star fabric — can you find it?? (Hint: it’s the lightest fabric….)

Ready? Set. Go! Let’s get started on Beatrice!

1. We’re going to cut all of our fabrics before we start to sew. Do you do that or do you cut your pieces out as you sew? Or do you make a sample block before you cut everything out? For my VRD quilts, I feel totally comfortable just jumping in — no need to make a sample block to make sure everything fits together properly because I know that everything will fit together perfectly. Just another thing I love about our Rose Card patterns.

2. Now let’s sew some Friendship Star blocks! The first thing we need to do is make some Half Square Triangles (HSTs) for the star points. When I first started quilting, I did not enjoy making HSTs, but the more I made them (so many quilt patterns use HSTs!), the more I found I actually liked them. Of course, the more I made them, the more accurate my HSTs became, too.

Layer your squares right sides together (RST). Draw a diagonal line from corner to corner. Sew 1/4″ away from both sides of your drawn line. Cut on the drawn line to make 2 HSTs. Press the blocks open. And don’t forget to trim off your little dog ears at the corners (this will help the accuracy of your piecing — trust me).

3. Next we’re going to lay out a Friendship Star block, which is a Nine Patch block with HSTs. That way, we know how the block should look. With Friendship Star blocks, it’s easy to turn the HSTs the wrong way, which makes for some wonky stars. I actually kept this block layout up on my flannel wall so I could use it as my reference as I sewed the blocks together.

4. Time to sew the blocks together. I am happy to say, I only stitched one block wrong, which of course meant that I had to unsew it and then sew it back together the right way. Mea culpa. Press your blocks. Stars done — yay!

5. Moving right along — let’s make some Rail Fence blocks. Now, the pattern walks you through sewing strip sets together and then sub-cutting the strip sets into the units for the Rail Fence blocks.

I prefer cutting my fabrics before sewing them together. I used to do the strip set method, but I always had a problem keeping my strips straight — mine would bow like a rainbow. This, of course, affected the accuracy of my piecing. This frustration is what led me to determining what the (unfinished) length of the unit would be and then cutting all my pieces before sewing the units. The easiest way to figure out the length is to look at the size of the unit you’re cutting out of the strip sets — usually that measurement is what you need.

Here are my rectangles ready to sew together into Rail Fence blocks.

6. Time to sew the Rail Fence blocks together. First, I sew the rectangles into pairs, then I sew the pairs into quads. Another thing I like better about sewing the rectangles together versus strip piecing is that I get a lot more variety in my blocks. After all the blocks are pieced, go ahead and press them. Rail Fence blocks done. Yippee!

7. All the blocks are finished!

8. Boy, am I glad that I have my handy dandy flannel backed table cloth already clipped up on my fabric storage cubes because the next step is to lay out the blocks according to the diagram on the pattern. Whoever discovered that fabric sticks to flannel was a genius! Thank you, thank you!

This quilt is big and I can’t get the entire thing arranged on my flannel wall so I will have to divide the quilt into sections and then sew the sections together. While the blocks are up in the first larger section, I moved a few things around so that the fabrics are well-distributed throughout and not concentrated in any one area.

I will say that these fabrics from the Homestead collection definitely make a gorgeous quilt! It just looks so warm and inviting, like a cup of hot apple cider. Where’s my doughnut??? Boston creme, if you please….

9. I sewed the blocks into rows and then I sewed the rows together into the top section of the quilt.

10. I folded the top section in half and moved it to the top of my flannel wall to make room at the bottom the last rows. That way, I will still be able to move blocks around in the bottom rows if needed. Next I sewed the blocks into rows and the rows into the bottom section. Finally I sewed the bottom section to the top section.

11. Here is my Beatrice quilt top, or flimsy. Yay! I am very happy with how it turned out. It is simply beautiful!

While I was sewing Beatrice together, I kept wondering how it would look in patriotic colors (the quilt diagram on the back of the pattern is done in red, white, and blue). But for this quilt to be large enough to be a Quilts of Valor quilt, you would have to add a border or another column of blocks because it’s not quite wide enough.

Adding a 4″ finished border all the way around would make the quilt 62″ x 80″ which is a wonderful size for a QOF quilt as well as a twin-sized quilt. You would need about 1 1/4 yards fabric for the border (cut strips 4 1/2″ wide) and a total of 5/8 yard for the binding for this larger size.

Who knows, maybe Beatrice will be my next QOF quilt project to make and donate. You’ll have to check back later to see if it is. LOL!

I look forward to seeing your Beatrice quilts! You can post them on our VRD Facebook page. Hope to see you there!

Speaking of Hoffman Fabrics, the new Fall 2024 catalogs have just come out. Check out the Project Book, filled with loads of inspiration and Villa Rosa Design Rose Card patterns featuring the latest Hoffman collections. Truly, a feast for the eyes. Ask at your favorite quilt shop or online retailer for the patterns, fabrics, or maybe even kits. ENJOY!

What quilt will you make first?

Until next Thursday —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @ VRD

Quilting Partners · Rose Cards · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

NEW Villa Rosa Designs Rose Card Patterns for September, New Website Content, and VRD Ebb Tide Quilt Tutorial

rosecardsLeave a comment

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

Welcome to September! Now that fall and back-to-school is in full swing, we all need to turn our thoughts to MORE QUILTING! In order to help you get sewing again, today’s post is brimming over with quilty goodness.

First up is our brand new collection of September Rose Card patterns.

NEW September 2023 Rose Card Quilt Patterns

YAY! By now most of you know that I just love the Thursday after the first Friday of the month because that’s New Pattern Day here on the blog. So, here they are — Candies, Icing, Elsie May, Delphinium, and Jolie.

Every month the VRD designers never fail to create a new collection of wonderful quilt patterns. I am sew blessed to be part of this VRD family. Just looking at the new patterns every month, I get inspired and can’t wait to spend some quality time with my sewing machine.

You can get all 5 patterns HERE.

But wait……..there’s more! Here is my new September table runner, Carousel.

Get Carousel HERE

I’m not sure if you can really see the background fountain in the cover photo, above, but I took this photo at Diamond Park, a lovely tree-lined park in the heart of my hometown. The land for the Park was gifted to the city in 1795 (Meadville was founded in 1788) by the city founder, David Mead. This gorgeous fountain was then gifted and constructed in the park in 1863 by the Shippen family. It still stands and functions today, after being renovated a couple times through the years.

Image from Meadville Calendar,
https://www.facebook.com/MeadvilleClub

Here’s a photo of the fountain with the park in the background. I didn’t even think to take any photos of the fountain itself when I was taking photos of Carousel. Silly me! Sorry for that. It truly is a beautiful fountain — and well over 150 years old.

As much as I’d like to keep talking history (another of my favorite things), we’d better keep moving or we’re never going to get to today’s tutorial. LOL!

Printable Fat Quarter List

Just this week, a new feature was added to the VRD website — a printable list of all the FAT QUARTER patterns in our VRD Rose Card catalog!

People and fabric companies have been asking for such a list for a while now. The fat quarter patterns on the list are thoughtfully organized by the number of fat quarters needed for each pattern — how ingenius! This awesome list will be updated monthly to include all new fat quarter patterns going forward, so the list will always be current and up-to-date. WOW!

You can find the printable list at the bottom of the website under Patterns (see the screenshot below). In fact, there is LOTS of stuff at the bottom of the website. If you’ve never scrolled down that far, you should. You might just be missing something good down there, like a directory of the tutorials on the blog, for example. Or maybe something important like Corrections.

Here’s a screenshot of the bottom of the VRD website, showing the things
you will find down there.

You can find the printable Fat Quarter Quilt List HERE.

Now on to our tutorial!

VRD Ebb Tide Tutorial

Keeping with our recent Fall fabric theme, I have another great VRD quilt tutorial for you today. You will want to add Ebb Tide to your collection of VRD Rose Cards if you don’t have it yet. So far, it’s the fastest and easiest VRD pattern I have made. It also looks great in any fabric, and can even handle large prints with ease. Ebb Tide will definitely become one of your go-to Rose Card patterns, if it hasn’t already.

Get Ebb Tide HERE

Today I’m working with Hoffman batiks again — more yummy luscious fall fabrics. Aren’t they beautiful??? This collection is appropriately called Shades of Autumn. Ask for it at your favorite quilt shop or retailer.

I want to point out a couple things about the fabrics I am using for Ebb Tide. It takes 6 fabrics plus a background. I chose 3 light fabrics and 3 dark fabrics. I liked the idea of a color-balanced quilt. Some other options might be to choose 6 medium or dark fabrics with a light background or 6 light fabrics with a medium or dark background. The fun thing about this quilt is that it really does go together lightening-fast and you’ll probably want to make more than, which will then give you more opportunities to play with different fabric options.

Let’s make Ebb Tide!

1. After you’ve gathered up your fabrics, it’s time to cut your pieces out. This doesn’t take very long, but keep in mind the pieces you cut out of the fat quarters will be large and you might need a bigger ruler. I used my 8 1/2″ x 24″ ruler to cut the rectangles out. This really helped to keep my cutting more accurate as I didn’t need to joggle multiple rulers around to get the wider strips. I also layered and cut three fabrics at a time, but don’t feel you have to layer your fabrics for cutting if you’re not comfortable doing that. Cutting one layer at time works just as well.

Don’t have an 8 1/2″ x 24″ ruler? You can find it HERE. You can find the my absolute favorite rotary cutter, the Olfa ergonomic cutter, HERE.

2. Now that my fat quarters are cut out, it’s time to cut the background pieces. For this part, I switched to a 2 1/2″ x 18″ ruler, which makes cutting my 2 1/2″ strips and rectangles a breeze. Don’t have a 2 1/2″ ruler? You can find it HERE.

3. I’m going to use my new handy-dandy design wall to lay the quilt out so I can arrange the fabrics before I sew everything together. The beauty of Ebb Tide is that because you aren’t piecing the quilt blocks, you can get right to laying out and arranging the entire quilt. Sew simple!

PSST! In case you didn’t know — my fancy-smancy design wall is actually a flannel-backed large rectangular table cloth clipped to the top of my fabric storage cubes doors with large binder clips. Here’s a great traditional plaid flannel backed table cloth that comes in multiple colors and sizes. What a HUGE improvement this has been for putting quilts together — so much easier than laying blocks out on the floor or on a bed to shuffle things around.

Here is my final layout for the Ebb Tide, not including the horizontal background strips in between each block row. What do you think of this layout? I really like how your eye travels down the quilt, following the light fabrics path, kind of like stepping stones.

4. Now that I’m happy with my layout, it’s time to sew the horizontal rows together. I just gathered one row at a time and took it right to my sewing machine (which is close to my flannel design wall). I sewed the large rectangles and the sashing strips together one row at a time, then I put the rows back on the flannel wall, so I didn’t get things mixed up as I worked.

5. Now I’m ready to sew the long sashing strips in between the pieced rows. One last look to make sure I have the rows in the right order, and back to the sewing machine. I sewed the rows and sashing strips into sections and then sewed the sections together, that way I didn’t have to struggle with the growing quilt top with each row I added.

6. One more step and Ebb Tide will be done (or at least the quilt top will be done). Did you know that a quilt top is called a flimsy in quilt lingo? Isn’t that fun??? Sorry, I’m easily distracted — did someone say squirrel??? Tehehehe……..

Now that the quilt center is finished, let’s sew the top and bottom borders on. But before we do that, I need to cut my border strips to the right size. I like to lay my border strips across the center of the quilt, trimming the strips to the width of the quilt center. I use the center because the edges can sometimes stretch out. By cutting my strips to the center width, I can bring those stretchy edges back to square. I know this sounds weird, but trust me, it works.

Next I pin my borders to the quilt top. I start by matching the center of the border to the center of the side I’m sewing the border to ( I fold them in half to find the centers, making a crease at the true center). Then I match and pin the outside edges. After the edges, I straighten and smooth the quilt and border, adding more pins between the center and outside edges to keep everything in place while I sew. Finally, it’s time to sew them together, knowing that my borders will be flat and not waving all over the place.

7. The side borders are the last thing to sew to the quilt. They will need to be pieced so the border strips are long enough. For this quilt, I used a straight seam to sew the strips together, but sometimes I use a diagonal seam (I do this when fabrics are busy in order to hide my seam a little better).

Yay! Ebb Tide is done. Eventually, I will back it with cozy fleece, machine quilt, bind, and label it. Hopefully sometime in the next 100 years. Ha!

By the way, I wanted to let you know that it took me about 2 hours to make the Ebb Tide flimsy — that included cutting the fabrics, laying it out, and doing the photography for this tutorial. I wonder how long will it take you to make it?

Here’s a “beauty” shot of my Ebb Tide flimsy — I really wanted to get a pretty picture with my Black-Eyed Susans. Sadly, the breeze wouldn’t cooperate with me, so the bottom of the flimsy kept blowing under the porch. Oh well…….

Thanks for sticking with me through the entire blog post, I know it was a long one, but I hope you enjoyed all of the quilty inspiration.

Take care and get quilting!

Until next week —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia

Rose Cards · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

VRD Alassio Quilt Tutorial

rosecards6 Comments

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

Yep, I am still in my fall quilt-making zone. Which is not a big surprise really because for the last couple weeks, here in NW PA, we’ve been having very fall-like weather. Today is quite cool with a high temperature only in the 60s and it feels really really chilly. Usually, August is in the 80s and even 90s occasionally. You know the “dog days” of summer? So the 60s is kind of a shock to the system. Our nights have even dipped down into the 40s a couple times. Just chalk it up to the ever-changing world of weird weather, I guess.

So in honor of our early autumn weather in August, I am going to show you how to make anther great Villa Rosa Designs Rose Card pattern, Alassio. Do you really have to use a fall-themed fabric collection like I am doing? Nope, not at all. This pattern will work beautifully with any fabric collection!

Get Alassio HERE

Alassio VRD Quilt Tutorial

Alassio is a super fast quilt to put together and it finishes at a great size of 54″ x 72″! It uses fat quarters and a background fabric. What could be simpler?

I put my Alassio quilt top together in about 5 hours — all in one day — and that included the step by step photos for this tutorial. It goes together so quickly — you’ll be amazed and very happy, especially if you need a quilt in a hurry.

I made my Alassio quilt sample with the Hoffman All Things Spice batik collection and coordinating 1895 Watercolors batiks. Isn’t it sew yummy? I just want to crawl into those fabrics with a good book, a cup of cider, and a donut………

On that note, let’s make Alassio together!

  1. First, we need to cut out our background squares.

2. Next up is cutting the pieces for our framed blocks from our fat quarters. I like to stack my fabrics and cut 3 or 4 at a time. Do likewise if you want, but it’s perfectly fine to cut them one at a time, too.

3. Moving right along, let’s mix and match our fabrics so each square will have a different fabric frame around it. And after that’s done, we’ll sew matching shorter strips to opposite sides of the squares.

4. Now we need to press our blocks so far before we add the long strips on the other sides of the center squares. I don’t normally do a lot of pressing when I’m making blocks but I do think pressing these blocks as you go results in crisper seams and better blocks.

5. Okay, now we’re ready to sew the long strips on the opposite sides of the center squares. Make sure the long strips match the strips you’ve already sewn onto the squares.

The again, who says your strips have to match — just sayin’…….

6. Head over to your iron again and press those blocks one more time — now our blocks done. That was fast, wasn’t it?

7. I just clipped my flannel-backed tablecloth up on my fabric storage cubes, which is my new design wall. I have to hang it sideways because it’s too long to hang up and down. And because this quilt is so big, I’m going to need to lay it out sideways, too. Fingers crossed that the tablecloth is long enough (or wide enough because it’s hung sideways) to lay out all the blocks.

How do you lay out your blocks before sewing them together? When I first started quilting, I used to lay my blocks out a cement floor. Yikes! Then for a really long time, I laid them out on a queen sized bed, which accommodated most of the quilts I made and saved some stress on my knees and my back. Now I have my very own portable design wall, otherwise known as a flannel-backed tablecloth. And it works great!

So, while we’re laying out the blocks according to the quilt diagram on the back of the pattern, go ahead and move the blocks around so fabrics and colors are well-distributed throughout the entire quilt.

Then once we’re satisfied with our layouts (yay — all the blocks fit on the flannel tablecloth!), it’s time to sew them into rows. Then we will sew the rows together. Quilt top done! Easy piezy!

I am so pleased with how my Alassio top turned out! I can’t wait to get it layered with pretty autumn-themed fleece, machine quilted, bound, and labeled so I can start enjoying it right away!

Alassio finishes faster because it doesn’t have a border, but if you want to make the quilt larger, you could add a border. It would look kind of like this:

This version of Alassio features a 4 1/2″ finished border. With this border, Alassio would finish at 64″ x 82″, which fits a twin bed or makes a nice big comfy throw.

To make Alassio with the border, you need 1 1/4 yds for the border (cut 8 strips that are 5″ x WOF) and a total of 5/8 yard (cut 8 strips that are 21/2″ x WOF) for binding.

Isn’t this a great quilt? Bet you can’t make just one!

I’d love to see your Alassio quilts! You can share them on our Villa Rosa Designs Facebook group page.

Until next week —

Sew. Laugh. Think Fall Quilts. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia