How many of you had the chance to see Monday’s solar eclipse? Could you see it from your own area? Or did you travel somewhere to see it?
Our area was overrun with people coming from all over to see the Eclipse — hotels and restaurants were full and the highways were all backed up. I was lucky that I could hang out on the back porch to see it — there was no need to go anywhere. Believe me, I was very happy not to have to go anywhere else, too.
My Mom (Hi Mom!) was super excited about the eclipse and had been for days. She put The Weather Channel on early on Monday so that we wouldn’t miss a thing as the eclipse arced across the US until it reached us here in northwest Pennsylvania. I popped outside frequently to watch as the moon’s shadow was creeping across the sun. I couldn’t stay outside for long, though, because my dog, Bailly (who was safely inside), would scratch crazily at the glass sliding door every time I went outside. My Dad (Hi Dad!) got in the spirit and came out from time to time to check it out, too. And yes, we all wore our special eclipse glasses.
It was so fascinating to watch the moon’s shadow slowly covered up the sun until almost totality, but, much to our disappointment, clouds covered the sun just as the eclipse moved into totality. We saw glimpses of it through openings in the clouds off and on, but we never did get to see complete totality in our location. WHat a bummer.
Of course, we had seen it on TV in other locations, but it wasn’t quite the same as seeing it yourself. Luckily, my oldest niece, Meg (Hi Meg!) took a great video of totality in our area and she shared it on Facebook, so I did get to see secondhand what I had missed.
Did you make your version of the Eclipses quilt?
Did you even get your Eclipses pattern yet? You can find it HERE as a physical pattern OR you can find it HERE as a digital pattern.
Here’s my Eclipses quilt top.
Mine was not the only Eclipses quilt in my area to celebrate the total Eclipses! My friend Kristine (Hi Kris!) and my cousin, Robin (Hi Robin!), made their own Eclipses quilts, too.
Kristine even machine-embroidered the center strip of her quilt with the Eclipse information and her location. What a great idea!
Kristine’s Eclipses quilt.
Robin made a wall-sized version like me. We even used the same fabrics, so they look similar, but not exact because of our fabric placement.
Robin’s wall quilt version of Eclipses.
What a fun project! I hope you will share your Eclipses projects on our VRD Facebook Group. Did you miss the Eclipses tutorial last week? You can find it HERE.
Now, guess what today is??? If you’re a new follower (Hey! Thanks for becoming a follower!), you probably have no idea why I’m so excited, do you? Let me explain —
This is the Thursday after the first Friday of the month and that means NEW Rose Card Patterns!
NEW VRD Rose Card Patterns for April 2024
Cue the trumpets and the confetti! Yay! Here they are!
Aren’t they great? What a lovely variety of patterns! I love that this group has new quilt patterns from multiple designers and you can see each designer’s own flavor. Which one do you want to make first?
You can get your own set of the 5 April patterns HERE for the low price of $8.95.
But wait……..there’s more! (Of course there is, did you even have a doubt?) Although there is no new table runner pattern this month (I’m sorry, the Blog Hop kept me hopping!), you are going to love the new Snack Mat — Bunny Ears!
Don’t you love it??? Yes, I know that Easter was actually at the end of March this year, but Easter is usually in April and bunnies are such a fun spring theme. You can get your own Bunny Ears pattern HERE.
Blog Hop Update
I just wanted to take a moment to let you know that all the winners have now been selected and contacted. Congratulations if you are one of them!
We did have a few folks who did not respond, so we had to randomly select new winners for those prizes. So the process takes longer than you’d expect it to. Now that everyone has responded, we will be starting to ship out prizes to the winners. Some of you will be receiving your prizes directly from some of our Sponsors. Thank you for your patience!
Next week’s post will be all about celebrating and announcing the winners of the Blog Hop — they are from all over the US and beyond.
Thanks for hopping with us! Here’s to more quilting adventures for us to share together in the future!
I can’t believe that a week has passed since we began our second VRD Blog Hop. It’s been Sew Much Fun! And FAST, too!
Our participating bloggers have shared their VRD quilts, tips and tricks, and inspiration by the boatload — just what we all needed to help us jump-start a new fun project! You can visit Villa Rosa Designs HERE to see our catalog of over 600 Rose Card patterns for even more inspiration as well as kits and fabric galore.
Here’s the special VRD Rose Card collection curated for our Fast & More Fun Blog Hop:
Get your own Pattern Set HERE or you can comment on all the participating blogger sites to register to win your own set.
Interested in seeing the patterns we selected for our very first Blog Hop in 2023? You can see them HERE.
While we are still Hopping, let me show you one of my next blog tutorial projects. I am planning to make 31 with this brand new collection by Satin Moon Designs for Blank Quilting. The collection is called Holiday Style and it is coming to a quilt shop near you in May 2024, so start planning your projects now.
You’ll have to stop back to check out my 31 tutorial sometime after the Blog Hop is all wrapped up and all the prizes are shipped.
Hey! Did you know we do tutorials on this blog??? You can see which VRD patterns we’ve done so far by finding the Tutorials link under the Blog Topics category over on the right side of the blog. Want to see a tutorial for a specific VRD Rose Card pattern that we haven’t done yet? Just ask and we’ll see what we can do.
Bloggers and Sponsors
GROUP HUG! An enormous hug goes out to all of our 28 amazing bloggers for participating in the 2024 Blog Hop and showing us their own spin for the VRD Rose Card patterns above. Thank you, Bloggers, for taking the time to be part of the second VRD Blog Hop!
PSST!A quick reminder from the bloggers — if you posted a comment as “anonymous” and/or did not include an email address, then PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE revisit the blogs where you posted and leave another comment with a contact email address. Sadly, with no email address, there is no way to contact you if you win. Comments will close midnight on Sunday, March 24th.
Here is our Blog Hop Schedule again in case you missed any participating blogs or need to add last-minute comments:
NEWSFLASH! — There’s ONE MORE blogger surprise just for you! Our lovely sponsor, Hancock’s of Paducah, just created a blog to share their delight and excitement about Villa Rosa Designs Rose Card Patterns. You can stop over to cheer them on HERE. They aren’t able to accept comments at this time, but they know that you’ve been registering on all the other blogs for prizes. Enjoy one last stop….
And of course, need I mention all the prizes up for grabs??? See below for MORE PRIZES!
We couldn’t have done this Blog Hop without the support and generosity of our sponsors. Please join me in offering a round of applause for each of these lovely sponsors —
I’m bummed that our Fast & More Fun Blog Hop is wrapping up today. Sadly, all good things must come to an end sometime. And this Blog Hop really was a SUPER GOOD THING!
I really enjoyed reading each participating blogger’s post each day, didn’t you? I must confess that I read them over breakfast because I honestly couldn’t wait to see which quilt each blogger created! And I absolutely loved reading the comments on our VRD post as well as the comments on the other blogs. What fun!
THANK YOU to everyone who took the time to hop from blog to blog with us this past week. I hope you really enjoyed the Fast & More Fun Blog Hop with more quilts, more inspiration, and of course more prizes. And I hope that you discovered new quilty friend bloggers to visit on the ‘Net.
If you haven’t finished reading all 28 blog posts for the Hop and/or leaving comments on each to register for prizes, you have through Sunday, March 24th, to do so. Use the links above to visit each participating blogger to catch up on your reading and your prize entries.
Winners will be drawn next week and notified. Please be patient with us as we navigate the shipping process. And we will post all the winners just as soon as the winners are selected and prizes are shipped.
One Last VRD Fast & Fun Blog Hop Giveaway
Let’s review all the prizes that are up for grabs for our Blog Hop:
Everyone, Everywhere is eligible to win prizes and there are several opportunities for you to win prizes:
Individual bloggers may be hosting giveaways on their blogs for you to win. Please visit these bloggers to find out about their giveaways and how to register.
Villa Rosa Designs is giving away a 2024 Blog Hop Rose Card pattern collection on each participating blog (International card set winners will receive a digital collection of the patterns).
Sponsor prizes have been donated by our lovely Sponsors, above, and even from some of the bloggers, too! These prizes are divided into 2 different categories —
5 Grand Prizes — Yup, I added another one to the Grand Prize list!
Kaffe Fasset Precut Collection
Big Box filled with mystery quilty goodies
$100 digital gift certificate to Hancock’s of Paducah
Electric Quilt 8 Download (winner to be selected on the EQ blog HERE)
An Eversewn Sparrow 25 Sewing Machine from Jaftex (winner will be selected on Scott’s blog HERE) — this was a happy surprise addition to the Hop Prizes, so make sure you get registered
Individual Prizes (each blogger will select 3 winners on their blog) which may be precuts, books, notions, or other cool quilty goodies.
WOWZER! That’s a lot of chances to win prizes so I hope you comment on ALL the blogs to increase your chance of being a winner. No purchase is necessary to participate in the Blog Hop or to win prizes, but please make sure you leave your email address on your comment or else we can’t contact you if you are a winner
Now, how about ONE LAST GIVEAWAY???
3 MORE QUILTS!!!
Left: Jubilee 45″ x 60″
Middle: Kalinda 45″ x 54″
Right: Star Spangled 48″ x 60″
In addition to the 3 quilts above, we will be giving away a set of the Fast & More Fun Rose Card Patterns and 3 commenters will be added to the Grand Prize drawings.
Here’s how to win one of these finished quilts:
You have up to 3 chances to win the quilts listed above on this blog post. Please leave a single comment for EACH of these categories (if you comment that you loved the hop, you are a blog follower, and hang out at VRD on Facebook all in one comment, it will only count as one chance to win).
1. Leave a comment onthis post and tell us your thoughts about the VRD Fast & More Fun Blog Hop.
2. Become a blog follower/subscriber and leave a comment on this post telling us that you are a blog follower/subscriber ( if you already follow — thank you — just leave a comment letting us know).
3. Join our VRD Facebook group and leave a comment on this post telling us you joined our FB group (if you are already a member — thank you — just leave a comment letting us know).
Ready! Set! GO!
Please note that to be registered to win any prizes on this blog, you first must leave a comment. To leave a comment, you will need to click on the comments link just under the blog title at the top of the blog OR you can find a comments link along the side of the blog post towards the bottom right. After you click the “comments” link, you need to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the comments in order to find the space to leave your own comment. Be patient — there may be a lot of comments to go through until you get to the bottom.Thank you.
Don’t forget — registration for prizes closes Sunday, March 24th.
Winners will be selected randomly next week and will be announced once all winners have been contacted.
PLEASE MAKE SURE TO INCLUDE AN EMAIL ADDRESSIN YOUR COMMENTSO WE CAN CONTACT YOU IF YOU ARE A WINNER!
Well, Quilty Friends, I thank you for hopping along with us this past week. I sincerely hope you had as much fun as we did! And I invite you to come back and visit the Villa Rosa Designs blog, Villa Rosa Quilts. We have SEW much fun here!
Let me rephrase that — Happy Blog Hop Kickoff Day to you!
Hi there! I’m Tricia, your Villa Rosa host for the Blog Hop. All of us at Villa Rosa Designs are tickled pink (and all the colors of the rainbow) that you are here to come along on a fun quilting adventure — our second Blog Hop here at Villa Rosa Designs. We’re calling it the Fast & MORE Fun Blog Hop.
You all know the saying — “Go big or go home?” We’re going B – I – G this year just for you! More Bloggers! More Fun! More Quilts! More Inspiration! More Prizes!
We have a super talented group of bloggers ready to share some awesome quilts made with Villa Rosa Designs (VRD) Rose Card patterns.
In fact, we’ve put together a special collection of 5 patterns just for this Blog Hop!
Here are the 5 patterns in the 2024 Fast & Fun Blog Hop Collection:
Lucky you! You can purchase a set of these 5 patterns HERE. Or visit our website HERE for even more great Rose Card patterns (over 600 of them).
Or you might just win a set. READ ON to find out how!
Villa Rosa Designs is the brainchild of owner and Rose Queen, Pat Fryer. Pat wanted to create Fast & Fun, affordable, and high quality patterns for quilters featuring precuts like 1/2 yards, fat quarters, 10″ squares, 5″ squares, 2 1/2″ strips, fat eighths, and fat sixths as well as other fabrics like panels and novelties.
Since its launch in 2010, VRD has become much more than a handful of easy-to-make quilt patterns. Rose Cards, Villa Rosa’s signature postcard-sized patterns, combine great design with simple packaging and an attractive price, making Rose Cards one of the best selling pattern brands on the market today! And since 2010, Villa Rosa Designs has grown to include a collection of very talented designers, each with their own unique style.
Now that you know a little bit about Villa Rosa Designs, let me tell you about the VRD Fast & More Fun Blog Hop!
What the Heck is a Blog Hop???
Good question and an easy one to explain. Most of you probably already know what a shop hop is (and may have participated in one before), where you travel to each shop participating in the event. There’s usually giveaways and a special pattern to collect at each shop.
A blog hop is very similar to a shop hop — instead of going from shop to shop, though, you go from blog to blog. You will usually find some kind of theme to a blog hop with opportunities to win prizes. And you can even hop from blog to blog in your jammies from the comfort of your own home. Yippee! Count me in!
Let’s HOP!
We’ve teamed up with the most awesome group of bloggers! They have accepted the Blog Hop challenge to create at least 1 of the 5 Blog Hop Rose Card patterns above. To see which blogger has created which pattern, you’ll have to visit EACH blogger during the hop which runs from today, March 14th through next Thursday, March 21st.
You will have the opportunity to win lots of great prizes during the blog hop! All you have to do is hop from blog to blog every day from March 14th through March 21st following the Blog Hop Schedule, above, to see which quilt each blogger made and to find out how to register for prizes on each blog.
Registration for prizes will close on Sunday, March 24th.
Before I jump into all the cool prizes you might win, I want to take a moment to thank all of our incredible sponsors, who donated all kinds of quilting goodies for you to win. Thank you Sponsors! Without you, this Blog Hop wouldn’t be possible.
It is free to participate in the Hop and there is no purchase necessary. Everyone Everywhere is invited to Hop along with us this week and register to win prizes.
There are many opportunities for you to win prizes during the blog hop:
Individual bloggers may be hosting giveaways on their blogs for you to win. Please visit individual blogs to find out about their giveaways and how to register.
Villa Rosa Designs is giving away a 2024 Blog Hop Rose Card pattern collection on each participating blog. International winners will win a digital set of patterns.
Sponsor prizes have been donated by our lovely Sponsors, above, and even from some of the bloggers, too! These prizes are divided into 2 different categories —
Grand Prizes (each blogger will select 3 entries to go into the Grand Prize drawings):
Kaffe Fasset Precut Collection
$100 digital Gift Certificate to Hancock’s of Paducah
A BIG BOX of mystery quilty goodies
An Electric Quilt 8 download — the winner for this prize will be selected on the EQ blog, so you will need to register there for this prize
Individual Prizes (each blogger will select 3 winners on their blog) which may be books, patterns, fat quarter bundles, 5″ squares, 2 1/2″ strips, 10″ squares, or notions — it will be a fun surprise, I promise!
WOW! That’s A LOT of prizes if you do the math!
Here are some photos of prizes to get you motivated! LOL!
Left: A Box filled with Individual Sponsor Prizes Center: The Kaffe Fasset Precut Collection Grand Prize Right: The Mystery Box of Goodies Grand Prize (most likely we’ll be adding more items before the Hop is over)
Sooooo, how do you win?
Hop from blog to blog using the schedule and links above from today, Thursday March 14th through Thursday March 21st and register for prizes at each blog you visit. The more participating blogs you visit and register at, the more chances you have to win prizes! It’s really that easy, I promise.
Winners will be selected randomly. Each blogger will select 3 names to go into the Grand Prize drawings and then 3 winners will be selected randomly to win from the bloggers’ entries. Each blogger will also randomly select 3 winners for the Sponsored Individual Prizes and 1 winner for a set of the Blog Hop patterns.
Prize registration closes Sunday, March 23 2024.
Winners will be announced just as soon as all winners have been notified. Prizes will be shipped as soon as possible. Please be patient if you are a prize winner, this process can take a little time.
Villa Rosa Designs Thursday March 14th Giveaway
Thank you for reading all the way through this post! As a reward, you can register to win QUILTS!
Left: Eden Rose 41×48 Center: Gingersnap 45×61 Right: Hey Day 60×80
These 3 quilts are made from Villa Rosa patterns and are completely finished — machine quilted and bound — and ready for you to enjoy. Awesome Applesauce!!!
Here’s how to win one of these quilts:
You have up to 3 chances to win the quilts listed above on this blog. Please do a separate comment for each of the following 3 opportunities — if you answer all of them in one comment, then it only counts as one comment. So sorry if this was not clear.
1. Leave a comment on this post and tell us what your favorite Rose Card pattern is (or one you would like to make if you’re new to VRD).
2. Become a blog follower/subscriber and leave a comment on this post telling us that you are a blog follower/subscriber (if you already subscribe — thank you — just leave a comment and let us know).
3. Join our VRD Facebook group and leave a comment on this post telling us you joined our FB group (if you are already a member of our FB group — thank you — just leave a comment and let us know).
In addition to the 3 quilts above, we will be giving away a set of the Fast & More Fun Rose Card Patterns and 3 commenters will be added to the Grand Prize drawings.
Please note that to be registered to win any prizes on this blog, you first must leave a comment. To leave a comment, you will need to click on the comments link just under the blog title at the top of the blog OR you can find a comments link along the side of the blog post towards the bottom right. After you click the “comments” link, you need to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the comments in order to find the space to leave your own comment. Be patient — there may be a lot of comments to go through until you get to the bottom.Thank you.
Ready! Set! GO!
Don’t forget — registration for prizes closes Sunday, March 23rd.
PLEASE MAKE SURE TO INCLUDE AN EMAIL ADDRESSSO WE CAN CONTACT YOU IF YOU ARE A WINNER!
Well, Quilty Friends, I thank you for reading the whole way to the end.
Good luck to each of you and please enjoy the Blog Hop! Don’t forget to stop back each day of the Hop to follow the links to bloggers for that day.
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.
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.
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.
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.
After our balmy winter weather last week, today I woke up to find snow on the ground. Not a lot, but enough to remind me that it is still winter. Then my mind immediately turned towards quilting for spring which always makes me feel sunny. So, I thought to myself, why not do a collection of spring VRD Rose Card patterns to get a dose of vitamin D along with a lot of inspiration? Maybe you need this little shot of sunshine right now, too.
Spring VRD Rose Card Quilt Patterns
Below you will find a wonderful eclectic collection of Spring-inspired projects curated just for you. I have included a link beneath each image so you can easily grab new-to-you physical Rose Cards. As always, there is NO SHIPPING on patterns!
For our international friends, I am here is a link to our digital Rose Card collection, where you will find most of the patterns in a download and print format: Digital Patterns.
After all these glorious Spring-inspired Rose Card patterns, I’m ready to head to my machine and start making a little spring for myself here in my dungeon — er….sewing room.
How about you? Betcha can’t pick just one….
Have a great week and don’t forget about our upcoming Blog Hop March 14th-21st.
Get ready for a fantastic time. Oh yeah — there will be prizes, too!
Villa Rosa Quilts 