Hello Quilty Friends!
Happy Thursday to you!
I hope you’ve gotten the chance to watch some of the Paralympics this week. I have, and the athletes are so so inspiring. I’ve never seen anyone work harder than they do. I am truly at a loss of words to describe how I feel watching and cheering the athletes on.
In honor of all Olympic and Paralympic athletes, today I’m doing a tutorial for Arctic Flame, which I really felt embodies the whole Winter Olympic theme. So stay tuned after the NEW patterns for the tutorial.
OH! Before I forget, I want to say HI to all of our new subscribers. We’re glad to have you aboard the VRD ship. I’m Tricia, your Cruise Director.
Now, let’s cue the marching band and let the balloons fly to celebrate the new March VRD patterns!
NEW March VRD Quilt Patterns
Hard to believe another month of 2026 has passed and it’s time for another collection of new patterns. I think you’re going to LOVE this month’s patterns. When I saw all of them, I was really amazed by the creativity of our designers. They are bright, bold, visual, and fun.
Dang! I’m not sure which one I want to make first.
Argh! Guess I’ll just have to add ’em to my mile long list that just keeps getting longer. I don’t think I’ll ever reach the end of the list, though.
You can get all 5 print patterns HERE
Dacada is Rachelle’s latest modern design and it almost leaps off the pattern. I wonder what it would look like with black or navy background instead of white? It finishes at 48″ x 60″ and is fat quarter friendly. You can find a kit featuring Bold in Bloom batiks HERE.
Serpentine by Molly is a fast and super fun strippy quilt that you can make in a wink. I love that you can use a favorite novelty fabric in her pattern. It finishes at 40″ x 60″ and uses yardage. You can find a kit featuring the same fabrics (Dressmaker) that Molly used HERE or a kit using batik fabrics HERE.
Up & Away is Tamara’s new pattern and it is as sweet as can be. It features a horizontal panel – 23″ and up so it gives you lots of options. With a 23″ panel, it finishes at 41″ x 49″, which is a lovely size for a baby quilt. Using a 36″ panel, the size would be approximately 41″ x 61″ which would be a small throw quilt. You can find a kit with the same fabrics Tamara used (Let’s Go on an Adventure) HERE.
Maraschino is Pat’s March pattern and it couldn’t be more fun. It finishes at 45″ x 54″ and uses fat quarters and a little bit of yardage. You can find a kit with the same fabrics Pat used (Red, White, and Sweet) HERE.
Wanderlust is Creative Sewlutions’s latest modern design. It finishes at 49″ x 63″ and uses yardage. I’m itching to make this one out of my stash with an awesome pop of color.
But wait – we’re not done yet!
Here’s my March Table Runner, Be Square. The center blocks are great for using your favorite fun novelty fabrics, printed panel squares, or even stray quilt blocks. It’s a very versatile design. And it goes together really fast.
Get the digital pattern HERE or the print pattern HERE.
And last, but certainly not least, is the third Pillow pattern in the 2026 Seasonal Pillow Series. It’s called Spring Blooms. This pillow design would look great in so many different color combinations! What would your favorite combination be?
Guess what? My Mom claimed this pillow for herself even before it was finished! Moms can be like that sometimes…….LOL!
And a star is born! My cute little Shih Tzu girl, Bailly, is always happy to pose for me. Isn’t she a cutie?
Get your digital pattern HERE or your Print pattern HERE.
3 Aunts Quilt Shop is doing a Block of the Month with the Pillow series this year and you can find the new Spring Blooms kits below:
They still have some kit options available for Happy Hearts (Jan) and Good Luck (Feb) available HERE if you haven’t made yours yet.
All right! What an awesome collection of patterns for March! Which one are you going to make first?
Now let’s dive right into our tutorial for today – Arctic Flame.
VRD Arctic Flame Quilt Tutorial
Are you familiar with the Arctic Flame pattern? It’s an oldie but definitely a goodie! This is one of Pat’s clever designs.
I’ve always wanted to make Arctic Flame, but for some reason I thought it looked kind of daunting and…I just didn’t. So, I keep coming back to it and then telling myself “someday.” Have you ever felt that way about a pattern?
Well, someday has finally come. I chose to do the Arctic Flame tutorial today in celebration of the 2026 Winter Olympic Games. The pattern name just sung for me and seemed to embody the spirit of the games. And I had just the perfect fabrics to use – wait ’til you see them!
Get your Digital pattern HERE or your Print pattern HERE
1. Time to gather up our fabrics. The fabrics I’m using today are from an older Hoffman digital collection called Starry Nights. I’ve had these fabrics hanging out for a while and now they’re ready to shine! Just wait until you see what I’ve got planned for the mountain and trees running yardage print.
2. Next up we’re cutting our light and dark fabrics into squares. Easy peasy.
3. Another easy one – cutting the strips for the sashing. Please note that my binding will be the same fabric as the sashing which will give the quilt a wonderful finish (that is when I quilt and bind it in 2099). Do likewise if you want – just make sure you have enough fabric for both.
4. Now for the piece de resistance – the mountains and trees theme fabric. Oh my goodness! I’m almost afraid to cut into it.
Do you have issues when trying to cut large pieces of fabric for a pattern? Well, let me tell you a little trick that I use – I use 2 rulers end to end to create the right size because I don’t have any gigantic quilt rulers to work with.
In the photo on the left, I’m using a 15″ square paired with my favorite 6″ x 12″ ruler to get the correct fabric width.
In the right photo, I’m using a 6″ x 26″ and my 6″ x 12″ ruler again to get the correct length.
PSST! I really do try to use the same manufacturer when using multiple rulers for a project so the measurements will more likely be the same, but sometimes you just have to do the best you can with what you have available. And I’m definitely taking the time to triple check my math before cutting.
In the bottom photo, I used my Frixion pen to mark which section the cut piece was so I didn’t get the pieces mixed up. I used TL for top left, TC for top center, TR for top right and so on.
5. Okay, we’re going to make some Half Square Triangles (HSTs) with our light and dark squares. Oops! I’m just rereading the instructions on the pattern and I realized I did the tutorial slightly different. Let me explain – the pattern calls for you to cut the squares on one diagonal and then sew dark and light triangles together to make HSTs.
My usual method, shown here, gets the same results, but is slightly different. I layer my light and dark squares RST and draw a diagonal line with my Frixion pen. Then I sew 1/4″ away from both sides of the line. Finally I cut on the line to make my 2 HSTs.
Same results, but I have found making HSTs this way eliminates sewing on the bias which can make the units stretch or do other funky things.
You do you, though – whichever method works the best for you.
6. We’re off to the iron now to press all of the HSTs open. Looking ahead at how we’re going to assemble the HSTs, I am going to err on the side of caution and press half my blocks to the dark and half to the light. Don’t forget to cut off all those little annoying ears after you are done pressing.
7. Now let’s sew those HSTs together into larger units of 4 HSTs. Having the seams pressed to both light and dark is going to make this a lot easier than if they were all pressed to the dark (which is what I normally do). I laid one of the units out on one of my small flannel boards so I wouldn’t get confused while sewing them together (Hey! Wanna make your own small flannel board? Check out this tutorial!)
8. Now that we know how to assemble the larger units, let’s sew them together, following the layout on the flannel board above. First, I’m going to sew the top 2 HSTs together. Second, sew the bottom pair together. Third, sew the top pair to the bottom pair. I often skip pressing until the end when I’m putting together a block or unit, but please press each step if you need to. Because I pressed the HST seams to both the right and the left, it’s a snap to nestle my seams to achieve good crisp points.
9. Now that the 4 HST units are sewn and pressed, we are going to sew 2 of those units together into a big 8 HST unit. This was really a lot easier to put together so far than I thought it would be. Yay!
10. Next step is to sew the sashing strips on according to the pattern. I am definitely pressing all of my sashing strips to the dark side (Huh….and it’s not even May 4th yet).
11. Now it’s time to lay everything out on my design wall before I can sew the sections together. WHEW! This is where I’m really glad I wrote fabric positions in the corners earlier so I don’t get the large pieces mixed up.
12. I need to sew all the pieces in each section together before I can sew the 3 vertical sections together. OH NO! I ran into a little unexpected problem with the bottom of my quilt –
I LITERALLY RAN OUT OF THE TREES/MOUNTAINS FABRIC. Because I wanted to arrange it vertically instead of cut random or scrappy. It’s an out of print fabric and no longer available and I have to complete the top now. Ugh! What’s a quilter to do? Improvise, of course.
Sadly, I can’t show you my solution yet because the quilt is too long and is hiding behind my cutting and pressing station. You’ll have to wait until the end when I show the entire quilt.
13. Now I’m going to sew the 3 vertical sections together. And suddenly the quilt came together like magic! I have no idea why I felt intimidated by it for so long. Silly me.
I really love how the sashing frames the center sections – it’s almost like looking out a window at the Alps in Italy, isn’t it?
14. And here’s the completed Arctic Flame quilt top. Please forgive the rocks anchoring the corners of the quilt top, but it’s a typical windy March day here in northwestern Pennsylvania.
Can you see my solution for running out of the trees/mountain print? The bottom center piece. I found a dark mottled fabric in my stash to place there. It works, doesn’t it? It really does. As the bottom of the center middle section is dark, like it’s fading into the shadows, the dark mottled fabric continues the shadow idea. What are your thoughts on my design decision? Have you ever run into a similar situation when you ran out of fabric and had to improvise? What did you do?
I really love how Arctic Flame came together and how the HST sections now mimic the mountains in the digital trees/mountain fabric by our friends over at Hoffman’s.
Hoffman’s sometimes creates landscape running yardage for their digital collections. Here is a great one from the current Stag and Stone collection:
Wouldn’t this print be gorgeous in the Arctic Flame pattern? What would you choose for the light and dark fabrics for the HSTs and the sashing?
Who knows? Maybe Arctic Flame will be your next quilt project.
As the Winter Olympics and Paralympics draw to a close, so does our Olympic celebration here on the blog. Stay tuned next week to see what mischief I’m cooking up for you next.
See you right here next time!
Sew. Laugh. Repeat.
Always,
Tricia @ VRD
Villa Rosa Quilts 