Tag: EQ8

Quilt Play · Rose Cards · villa rosa designs

Flowers, Electric Quilt, and NEW Villa Rosa Designs Rose Card Quilt Patterns

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Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

I hope you are all having a great week so far! Me, it’s been a bit rocky in my basement studio/office, which I fondly call my “dungeon.” After a really dry July, early August has been really wet. And I mean wet!

In 5 days, water has rolled into my studio casement window THREE TIMES! In 5 days! I have spent most of my time emptying the dehumidifier, moving fans around, washing-drying-rewashing-drying again all the blankets we’ve been able to find for soaking up the water. ARGH! Luckily, the water didn’t completely flood my space, it only got about halfway across the room, almost to my computer desk. It’s been kind of stressful here. I shouldn’t be complaining because others are faring much worse than I am, but it’s been a lot of work to stay on top of the water once the deluges hit. Talking to my family, we don’t think this much flooding in the basement has happened in 20 years. What a fluke (I hope).

Now let’s turn our thoughts to something really fun and seasonal. Sadly, our container garden and other plants did not grow much during the super dry month of July, but all of a sudden everything is growing by leaps and bounds, although the marigolds don’t look so happy.

We planted our garden and plants a bit late this year and now that things are finally growing like crazy, I just hope that they’ll have enough time to bear fruit (or veggies). I would really like some fresh produce that I grew myself on the back porch! Yum yum yummy!

Speaking of flowers and plants, I’m particularly proud of my Black-Eyed Susans, which is one of my all-time favorite flowers, along with Sunflowers and Daisies. I wonder……how many Black-Eyed Susan, Sunflower, and Daisy quilt blocks are there in Electric Quilt 8. Any guesses? Hmm. I haven’t checked yet, so I think I’ll guess 35 total. So let’s see! Hang on, I’ll be right back. Let me check.

I found 6 Black-Eyed/Brown-Eyed Susan quilt blocks. Not too shabby!

Next I counted 34 Sunflower blocks. Nice!

And then I discovered at least 40 Daisy blocks. Way cool!

Well, my guess was a bit low. How about your guess?

Sew, let’s have some fun and play with flower blocks a little bit!

Here are some really fun quilts with Black-eyed Susan blocks. EQ8 ROCKS!

Check out these awesome Sunflower quilts — are you inspired yet???

Now, how about a trio of Daisy quilts?

WOW! I really love love love EQ8 — it is sew sew fun just to explore different blocks and make quilts on the computer screen, whether I ever make them into real quilts or not!

Aren’t you inspired to make your own flower quilt now? I challenge you to create a quilt featuring your favorite flower! I dare you!

I’d love to revisit flower quilts down the road and include the quilts of our VRD fans. Sew, please send me your flower quilts — er, a photo of your flower quilt along with a short description/story of your quilt. If I choose your quilt and story for the blog, I promise I’ll send you a little surprise in the mail! You can email your flower quilt images to me at tricia@villarosaquilts.com.

NEW AUGUST VILLA ROSA DESIGNS ROSE CARDS

Yay! It’s that time of the month again — no, not THAT time of the month. LOL! It’s the beginning of a new month and that means a NEW collection of Villa Rosa Rose Cards!

Here they are — our new August Rose Cards!

You can order the August set of 5 Rose Cards HERE. Go ahead, I know you want to.

But wait — there’s more! Tehehe.

Here’s my NEW August Table Runner, Slice of Summer.

Cute, huh? You can get your own Slice of Summer Rose Card HERE.

Sew, there you have it — our awesome new August patterns! Can’t wait to see what new patterns next month will bring…….

Until next Thursday —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD

Let’s Design a Quilt Together — A Peek into My Quilt Design Process
Quilting Partners · Tips and Tricks · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

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

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Hello Quilty Friends!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Until next Thursday —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD

The Villa Rosa Designs Ap and a Bear Hugs Story
Quilt Stories · Rose Cards · villa rosa designs

The Villa Rosa Designs Ap and a Bear Hugs Story

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Hello Quilty Friends!

Hope you are all having a wonderful week filled with lots of quilting and sunshine! Recently here in NW PA, we finally had some warm temperatures and lots of sunshine. It’s like we went from winter to summer in a matter of days. Everything is turning green and there is an explosion of color — it almost hurts your eyes, but in a good way!

Did you know Villa Rosa Designs has an ap?

Yes, we do!

It is available through your ap store. It’s a free ap and after you download it, you will be able to view all the Rose Cards, listed alphabetically. It even updates when new cards are added each month, so you will always have the most up-to-date list of Rose Cards.

In addition to the complete Rose Card list, you can create your own lists such as What I Own or What I Want or even Fat Quarter Quilts — whatever lists you can think of.

Another useful thing is that when you click on a Rose Card, another screen pops up with the quilt dimensions and its fabric requirements.

It’s not a shopping ap, but it’s fun to be able to search Rose Cards on the go.

For example:

Like when you’re at a quilt show or shop and you can’t remember if you have a specific Card — use the ap to find out.

Or maybe you’re shopping and find the perfect fabrics for a Rose Card project but you forgot the Card at home and you don’t know how much fabric you need — use the ap and look up the Rose Card to see the fabric requirements.

What a great resource to have at your fingertips wherever you go!

Bear Hugs: A Sweet Story

As a quilter, I just love hearing the story behind the quilt, don’t you?

You might remember the Bear Hugs Rose Card as one of the new Rose Cards for this month. Here’s the story behind the quilt.

You can order Bear Hugs HERE

I was invited to a baby shower for my cousin’s daughter — KK’s first baby. Of course I was going to make a baby quilt. I’m sure KK was expecting one, too, as she and her 2 siblings all received baby quilts when they were born.

I asked KK’s mom (my cousin) what the nursery theme was. She sent me a video which showed the crib and unfinished nursery in the background and told me “buffalo plaid, bears, fox, [and] deer.”

Now I had a starting point and it was time to head to my local quilt shop. I was sew lucky because there was a great display of the exact fabrics I was looking for! I grabbed a yard of a black and white buffalo plaid as well as 8 coordinating fat quarters of woodsy bears, deer, checks, and dots in black, white, red, and grey. I didn’t know what design I was doing yet, but I had the fabric — I was halfway there.

The next thing I did was fire up my computer and my Electric Quilt 8 (EQ8) software. Interested in learning more about EQ8? Go HERE.

I decided to use some type of a Log Cabin block because of the woodsy theme. I played around with different Log Cabin-type blocks for a while and this block is what I came up with:

Bear Hugs block

It’s a modern take on the old classic Log Cabin block.

This is one of the things I find the most fun about being a quilt designer — starting with a traditional block and re-imagining it. I really love doing that. It’s such a great way to create an entirely new quilt block to build a quilt around.

Happily, I finished the quilt a few days before KK’s baby shower. It was a beautiful baby shower –the theme of the shower matched the baby quilt perfectly, right down to the colors! I couldn’t wait for her to open it.

Surprise! A few days later, KK had baby J — a few weeks early, but he was perfect. And he had a full head of hair, too!

Here are a couple photos of Baby J on his Bear Hugs quilt — his quilt is the original quilt used for the front of the Bear Hugs pattern.

Baby J on his Bear Hugs quilt
You can see the top right corner of the quilt turned down, that’s the label. Do you label your quilts?

VRD Invites You…

Want to share your VRD Rose Card story? We’d love to hear it!

Please email your quilt story and original photo along with the Rose Card pattern you used to make the quilt to tricia@villarosadesigns.com. Stories and accompanying photos will be selected randomly to share on our blog and Facebook. This project will be ongoing. If your story is selected, we’ll send you a little thank you surprise to you in the mail! Can’t wait to hear your quilt stories!

Until next Thursday —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD