Category: Tutorials

2025 Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) Series · Tips and Tricks · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

Beginner Free Motion Quilting (FMQ) Lesson 2: Let’s Doodle!

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Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

I’m excited to continue on our Beginner Free Motion Quilting adventure! Put your seat belt on and get ready to ride!

I hope you had a chance to read last week’s post, which was a lot of information about things to know before you start. You can find Lesson 1 HERE.

Please note that I’m adding the FMQ series to the right side of the screen under the Blog Topic section so that it’s easy to find each lesson as they get posted.

Lesson 2 – Let’s Doodle!

All right! In Lesson 2, we’re going to DOODLE! Yep, that’s right! DOODLE!

Whenever I taught a Beginner FMQ class, I started out with doodling on a dry erase board. I actually bought a class set of boards which came with felt erasers and even markers, which was super for a class with 4-12 students.

Any kind of dry erase board works – you don’t have to buy a special classroom set (unless you plan to teach FMQ – LOL!). You can even find dry erase boards and dry erase markers at your local Dollar Tree store. So if you don’t already have one, they are easy to find and relatively inexpensive to purchase.

Just make sure you are using real dry erase markers (not sharpies!) on your board or else you won’t be able to erase it and use it over and over.

You might wonder why I’m starting off with doodling and not just jumping right into FMQ on the sewing machine.

Doodling gives you the opportunity to develop eye hand coordination and to build muscle memory. Believe it or not, but doodling really does help when you are starting out with FMQ. If you’ve practiced the movements on your board, they will come easier and more quickly when you are working with your sewing machine.

Besides, doodling is fun and relaxing. You can do it while watching TV, during the commercials, listening to your favorite audiobook, or even while waiting at the doctor’s office! AND you have the ability to erase your doodling whenever you want to. Yay!

Zigzags

Let’s start out with some fun zigzags. Zigzags will help us to feel comfortable moving across the board and going up and down at the same time. Like hills and valleys. V’s and W’s. Give it a try. Make sure to connect each shape/letter with the next one.

Curves and Waves

Let’s practice some gentle curves and waves on our boards just to get a feeling for the smooth movement. Don’t overthink this, just relax and glide across the board. If desired, you can even practice these motions in the air with your hands and arms. I’ve always been a big proponent of “air writing.”

ABC’s

Now let’s try some cursive writing! Believe it or not, but lowercase cursive letters are great practice for FMQ! Seriously! Make sure you are connecting the letters together. I find that the faster I write the alphabet in cursive, the better it looks. Don’t think about the shape of each letter – you already know it – just write it.

Go ahead and write your name in all lowercase cursive letters. You know you want to! Try some other words, too. Just remember to connect the letters together. Feel free to have some fun like I did with my name when I dotted my i’s and crossed my t.

Okay, now we’re going to focus on the cursive lowercase “E” (e) and the lowercase “L” (l). Just keep connecting them together.

After you are comfortable making e’s and l’s, I want you to try alternating the loops. This may be challenging for some of you, but keep doodling until you feel more comfortable with this. Doodle, doodle, doodle.

We definitely want to alternate the loops, or else we’ll get something like this. Yikes! The idea is to move across the board and fill in the white space, not to make clouds and weird flowers.

Once you’ve got alternating the loops reasonably down, we’re ready to add more movement to this design. This time we’re going to move our loops up, down, and across the board while alternating the loops (yep, all at the same time!) so we can fill up the white space.

Try not to overthink things here. Don’t stress yourself out if things aren’t perfect – we’re not going for perfection here. I find the faster I go, the better it looks. Remember, you can keep erasing it and trying again.

Loops!

Wohoo! Pat yourself on the back! You are making loops!

Loops are one of my favorite and best go-to designs. AND it’s the design I start out with when I teach FMQ! Go you!

I’ve found Loops to be more beginner friendly for most people. Being able to cross over your lines gives you a little more feeling of control. I have found, though, that perhaps 1 in 10 quilters have a hard time mastering loops – mainly the alternating of them – so those folks I encourage to move on to stippling/meandering.

Have you ever taken a beginner FMQ class where the teacher starts you out with stippling/meandering? I bet there are a lot of you who felt really frustrated because you couldn’t master the design and may have even quit trying to master FMQ after that class.

Well, I’m here to tell you that –

YES, YOU CAN MASTER FMQ!

So “let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start” (kudos if you can name the movie, the song, and the actress for this quote).

And the very beginning is making loops!

I hope you’ll spend a little time doodling this week because next week for Lesson 3, we are going to start working with our machines and our Loopy design. I’d love to see your doodles in the comments or on our VRD Facebook page.

Until next time –

Sew. Laugh. Doodle. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @ VRD

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

VRD Adobo Quilt Tutorial and NEW VRD January Rose Card Quilt Patterns

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Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday!

Hi guys! Psst! It’s me, Molly!

It’s been a long time since I jumped on here for a tutorial, but I finally got this one put together just for you!

I was looking at some panels in the shop recently (to see my tour of the VRD shop, go HERE) to sew up into a quilt. I was SEW inspired by the National Parks panels and I LOVE that there are a couple of different choices. Have you seen these yet???

Utah
California

You can find the Utah panel HERE and the California panel HERE.

We also have some awesome Rose Card patterns to showcase these great panels!

Both are fun and amazing patterns — of course, I might be a little biased, since one is my sister’s pattern and the other one is mine. LOL! 😁

If you don’t already have these great patterns in your stash, you can find digital Picture Perfect HERE, digital Adobo HERE, print Picture Perfect HERE, and print Adobo HERE.

For today’s tutorial, though, I’m going to do Heidi’s pattern Adobo because I really want to use the Riley Blake Utah panel.

VRD Adobo Quilt Pattern Tutorial

GUESS WHAT????

You can sew along with me! We made up kits for today’s tutorial. Go grab your Utah Adobo kit HERE and we can sew together! How cool is that?

Your Adobo kit will include all the fabric for the top and binding as well as the pattern.

I wanted to make this Adobo quilt in all Riley Blake Designs (RBD) so I found some RBD fabrics that pulled out the colors from the panel — Poparazzi sand for the background, Poparazzi brown for the sashing, with Dapple orange, Blossom brown, and Blossom green for the Flying Geese.

Let’s get started!

Cut the squares from the background and the coordinates. Pair up each coordinate square to a background square.

Make Half Square Triangles (HSTs) by drawing a diagonal line then sewing 1/4” on either side. Cut apart and press open. Don’t forgot to square up your HSTs if needed.

Tip from Heidi (who’s keeping an eye on me as I work on this tutorial) – Press half the seams of each color HST to the background and the other half to the color.

Now sew 2 matching HSTs together to make a Flying Geese Block A. If you pressed half of the HSTs to the colored fabric and the other half to the background, use one of each to make a Flying Geese Block A. Like magic, the seams will lock together! Great tip, Heidi!

Next we need to create a Flying Geese block for the sashing center. We’re going to use a slightly different technique for this one.

Layer a background square right sides together (RST) on the side of a rectangle sashing fabric. Draw a diagonal line from the bottom outside corner to the opposite top corner. Sew on the drawn line and cut 1/4″ away from the line. Repeat for the other side. Make 4 Flying Geese units.

Next sew background squares to the ends of 2 Flying Geese units.

Sew the 2 Flying Geese units to the sides of an orange square. Then sew the Flying Geese units with the background squares on the ends to the top and bottom. Make 1 Block B.

Molly’s Tip – If using your main print for the center square, cut it from the yardage after you cut your main print/panel C pieces.

Instead of using a main print, though, I’m using the Utah panels so we just need to cut them apart (make sure they are the right measurements – trim if needed).

If using a main fabric, cut the C pieces to the size listed on the pattern.

Next, cut the sashing and add them to sides first, then to the top and bottom. Make 4.

Lay out the main print/panel C pieces and the Flying Geese Block A’s so the Geese are flying away from the center. Sew together (please note that I added an extra background strip to the top and bottom of my quilt. Feel free to do the same, but you will need a little bit more background fabric).

Layer your quilt. Quilt it as desired. Bind it. And don’t forget your label!

TA DA! That’s it! Done! Eazy piezy!

I’m going to add one more little detail to my quilt — I’m going to embroider UTAH in the center square!

Here are some other fun Adobo quilts VRD has as kits. You can find them HERE.

Kitty The Cat
Call of the Wild

Thanks for stopping by and sewing with me!

Now let’s check out the new January VRD Rose Card patterns!

NEW January VRD Rose Card Patterns

I’m excited that I get to show the new patterns off today! Tricia usually does it, but today it’s my turn. Yay!

Here are the 5 main patterns.

Look! There are 2 panel quilt patterns this month – one using a 24″ panel and the other one uses a 36″ panel. Cool!

Rewey uses fat eighths, Pink Piece uses fat quarters, and Yorkshire uses half yards.

This set of patterns gives you a nice variety to add to your VRD Rose Card collection. You can get all 5 print patterns HERE (if you want digital patterns, you can order each pattern individually).

But wait — there’s more (Sorry, been wanting to say that)!

Tricia has a new table runner for you called Snowfall.

You can get the print Snowfall HERE or the digital Snowfall HERE.

And here’s our 11th Snack Mat, Woolly Mitten (just in case you’re keeping track, this is the next to the last one).

You can get the print Woolly Mitten Snack Mat HERE or the digital Woolly Mitten Snack Mat HERE.

We still have some kits available for this month’s patterns (if you know me, I’m all about kits). Get yours now before they’re gone cause they’re going fast.

Farm Fresh (with the Out of Farm’s Way collection)

Pink Peace (with the pink Tim Holtz fabrics)

Yorkshire (with the Elegance collection)

Yorkshire (with the Toil & Trouble Halloween collection)

Rewey (with Australian fabrics)

Well, that’s it from me. I can’t wait to see your Adobo quilts.

Until next time —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Later,

Molly

Rose Cards · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

NEW VRD October Rose Card Quilt Patterns and a VRD Pumpkin Hollow Tutorial

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Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

Guess what day it is????? The Thursday after the first Friday of the month. And you all know by now what that means — NEW PATTERNS!

Yay! I really love seeing the new patterns every month, they just make me feel SEW inspired. Do you know what I mean? And without further ado, here they are!

You can get the set of 5 print patterns HERE.

(If you are interested in digital patterns, you will need to purchase each pattern separately)

These 5 great patterns are a must-have for your growing Rose Card pattern collection! They include a delightful star quilt (Amelia), 2 panel quilts (Morning Spring and Surf & Turf), and 2 fun modern designs (Changing Lanes and Landina. I know I say this all the time, but the creativity of our VRD designers always amazes me. You rock, designers!

But wait We can’t forget this month’s Table Runner and Snack Mat can we???

Get the print pattern HERE or the digital pattern HERE

I designed the Pumpkin Spice pattern to showcase all those fantastic autumn fabrics out there we never want to chop up into little pieces! And who doesn’t love pumpkins — Log Cabin pumpkins. What a fun twist, huh? Depending on the fabrics you choose for Pumpkin Spice, this runner can decorate your table for both October and November. Just sayin’…..

Get the print pattern HERE or the digital pattern HERE

It just isn’t October with a cat or two, is it? My cats had to be grey because I actually have 2 grey cats. Pip is my senior citizen who is a 14 year old silver tabby with a very svelte figure. Griffin (or Griffy as I usually call him) is my 3 year grey tabby who is a real sweetie pie. My 2 year old shih tzu pup, Bailly, rounds out my little furry family.

Of course, you can make your kitties any colors you want — wouldn’t it be fun to make them look like your real cats, if you have any? I chose to use Halloween fabrics for the background and the binding, but you could make Christmas kitties or 4th of July kitties or any kind of kitties you desire.

Which pattern are you going to make first?

Speaking of fall sewing, I thought it would be fun to do a tutorial for my very first pumpkin runner pattern, Pumpkin Hollow. It’s been a popular pattern. Thank you! I’m thrilled you like it as much as I do. 🙂

Pumpkin Hollow VRD Tutorial

I have really enjoyed seeing all the different Pumpkin Hollow runners folks have been posting on our VRD Facebook page. If you’re looking for inspiration for your Pumpkin Hollow runner, please stop by the Facebook page and I promise you’ll find awesome quilts there. And a lot of friendly helpful quilters.

One of my favorite Pumpkin Hollow runners so far had appliqued vines and leaves added to the pumpkin stems. What a lovely addition to my humble little pumpkin pattern. Just another reason I love our VRD Rose Card patterns — there are plenty of opportunities for you to add your own touches!

Get the print version HERE and the digital pattern HERE

Well, let’s get started on our tutorial!

Of course, the first thing we need to do is gather up our fabrics. I pulled out some pumpkin and Halloween fabrics from my stash for today’s tutorial. I must admit that I’m embarrassed to even tell you how long these fabrics have been lurking quietly in my stash (I’m not actually sure, to be truthful), but now it’s finally their time to shine. I bet you don’t have any fabrics like that in your stash, do you? LOL!

I chose a mottled black background to compliment these burnt orange fabrics with black accents. I tried a couple different colors, but black looked the best, so black it is. And the green batik was just hanging out on my cutting table from another project, so that was an easy choice.

Lime to get started with the cutting.

Now that I’ve cut my fabrics, I’m getting kind of excited to see how this runner will look when it’s finished. It will definitely be different from my original version, which had a light background (the one on the front of the pattern, above).

Let’s sew 5 strips together to make 3 small pumpkins. You can sew the strips for all 3 pumpkins in the same order or mix them up. I like to mix things up (wink, wink).

Time to sew some “flippy corners”! Yes, I am using the scientific name for this technique. You may have even noticed that lately I’m using that scientific term on my new patterns.

Layer a background square right sides together on the corner of a pumpkin. Draw a diagonal line. Sew on the line. Cut 1/4″ away from the line and press open. Now repeat this for all 5 pumpkins — the 3 strippy ones and the 2 tall single fabric ones.

Next we are going to prepare our pumpkins stems. Sew a background strip to each side of the stems. Keep in mind that the smaller pumpkin has a smaller stem, so don’t get the background pieces confused between the 2 sizes of pumpkins.

Wow! This is coming together so quickly.

Now add the top background rectangle to the small pumpkin stems.

Let’s sew the stems to the tops of the pumpkins. Sheesh! We’re almost done. Wow! It really does go together super fast.

Okay, I’m going to put my pumpkins up on my design wall and arrange them. For fun, I decided to make the strips on the center little pumpkin go up and down instead of side to side.

I like how it looks. Isn’t it fun? I’m going to sew the blocks together.

Easy piezy! Done! Now all that is left to do is layer it with batting and backing, quilt it, bind it, and slap a label on it.

My pal, Robin (BIG Shoutout to Robin!), has already made 2 Pumpkin Hollow runners.

Don’t you just love her teal background in the first one? It’s an awesome unexpected pop of color paired with her mostly lighter florals and leaves.

In contrast, her second one is very warm and cozy with traditional browns and oranges. Love the little bit of blue! Robin even added a narrow inner border and a fall outer border to finish things off. Psst! Adding borders makes your quilt larger without having to make more blocks.

Great job! Thank you for sharing your runners with us! For more Pumpkin Hollow inspirations, please visit our VRD Facebook page.

Now you’ll have to excuse me. I’ve got to get back to my super secret projects for Quilt Market. Shhhhhh…….. Hang in there, you’ll see them very soon, I promise!

Take care and happy quilting!

Until next week –

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD

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

VRD Discovery Quilt Tutorial and 8 Tips for Photographing Your Quilts

rosecards2 Comments

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

    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

    rosecardsLeave a comment

    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

    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

    Tutorials · villa rosa designs

    VRD Angel Face Quilt Tutorial

    rosecards6 Comments

    Hello Quilty Friends!

    Happy Thursday to you!

    It’s summer time and the living is easy! After last week’s unusual heatwave here in NW PA, this week has been delightfully pleasant! I’ve enjoyed some quality time on the back porch hanging out with my pup, Bailly, and watching our local eagles. Breakfast on the porch? Yup! Lunch on the porch? Double yup!

    As I’ve shown in photos before, the little valley where I live, tucked into the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains, truly is a little slice of paradise.

    I hope you are able to slow down your pace a smidge in order to enjoy nature, too.

    I’ve also been getting in some much-needed sewing as well. WHEW! I am so relieved that crazy has settled down a little bit for me in recent weeks! You’ll see some of my industriousness when the new July Rose Card patterns are revealed!

    In the meantime, let’s get going on this week’s summer tutorial — Angel Face.

    Angle Face VRD Quilt Tutorial

    I’ve been a big fan of Villa Rosa Designs Rose Cards since my first Quilt Market in 2010 when I first met the amazing Pat Fryer, but Angel Face was one of the very first VRD patterns I’d seen in one of my local quilt shops way back when as they used it as the pattern for their beginner quilting series. Funny how little memory nuggets resurface, isn’t it???

    You can find the Angel Face Print Pattern HERE or the Digital Pattern HERE.

    Sew, let’s get this tutorial part started!!

    Today I’m using fabric from the Dandelion Wishes digital collection and an 885 Dot Batik companion from our quilting pal, Hoffman. Love, love, love these fabrics — the colors are so so soft and gentle. There are 2 colorways — green and pink — and I used a little of both for this fun beginner quilt project.

    Heads up! I did make a slight change to the pattern instructions. The pattern calls for a single main print, but I went with and alternated the 2 prints you see on the left side of the photo because I just couldn’t decide between them. Big surprise, there, huh?

    First up is cutting out all the pieces, which doesn’t take because we’re going to do some strip sets, so no little pieces. Easy Piezy!

    Let’s sew a couple strip sets together. Press the seams towards the narrow strips. Then we need to subcut our strip sets into units. Bet you can do this with both eyes closed, right?

    Our next step is to sew the unpieced strips to opposite sides of our main print (or prints) squares.

    Now that our strips are sewn to our squares, let’s give them a nice press. Press your seams towards the center square.

    Remember those pieced units we cut from our strip sets? It’s time to sew them to the other 2 sides of the squares. There is a teeny bit of matching seams on the ends, but if you pressed the way I suggested above, the seams will nestle together nicely. Pin if you need to and just take your time.

    Good to go! Time to give them a little press.

    My next step because I used 2 different main prints is to slap my blocks up on my design wall so I can make sure to alternate the 2 blocks. I really like how it looks with 2 fabrics, don’t you? You could even use 12 different fabrics for the squares if you wanted to. Angel Face is a very versatile pattern.

    Now let’s sew the blocks together into a quilt top. Remember, that there is some fidgety seam matching when you sew the blocks together, so pin if you need to and go slowly. I promise you, though, that Angel Face goes together super fast!

    You can stop here and call your top finished. This size makes a wonderful baby quilt! Layer, quilt, lable, and bind.

    OR, you can add a border to make Angel Face the perfect size for a throw quilt.

    I’m going to add a border. In fact, I’m using the lighter of the 2 accent fabrics as my border. I think it will make the mottled purple accent strips really pop!

    Go ahead and cut out your border strips for the quilt. I chose to add the top and bottom borders on first because the width of the quilt top is less than the width of my fabric, so I won’t have to piece the top and bottom borders.

    To measure my top and bottom border strips for cutting, I found the center of my quilt vertically (up and down) and I line up the end of my 2 strips and then I match them up to the edge of the quilt. I pin everything together to keep the 2 borders and the quilt lined up. Then I smooth the strips across the width of the quilt center and cut them to match the width of the quilt top. No more measuring with a measuring tape or ruler for me when cutting border strips.

    Then I find and make creases at the centers of the top and bottom borders and the centers of the top and bottom of the quilt. This little step makes it really easy to match up the centers to assist in keeping my borders nice and square instead of getting all crazy and wavy.

    Match up the center creases and pin. Next match the ends of the border strips to the ends of the quilt. Pin.

    Sew the borders to the top and bottom of the quilt.

    For the side borders, you’ll need to piece the strips. Then measure and cut the side border strips. Crease the centers of the strips and the sides of the quilt. Match them up and pin. Match up the ends of the borders and quilt. Pin some more. Finally, sew the side borders to the quilt.

    Isn’t it a really soft and pretty quilt???

    Here’s a “beauty” shot on my back porch……….

    I hope you enjoyed today’s tutorial. Angel Face is a wonderful project. Perfect for a beginner, yet fun and versatile for a more experienced quilter.

    Don’t forget to stop and enjoy summer before it’s gone.

    Until next week —

    Sew. Laugh. RELAX. Repeat.

    Always,

    Tricia @ VRD