Tag: new rose card pattern

Quilting Partners · Rose Cards · villa rosa designs

NEW January 2024 Villa Rosa Rose Card Quilt Patterns and Quilting Together

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Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

I hope January is off to a good start for you. I’ll bet you have some great quilting plans for this year. Me too! In fact, I am already getting started on some. Yay!

What about New Year’s Resolutions? Do you make any? If you do, how hard is it for you to keep them? 

I don’t really make “Resolutions” anymore because they’ve always been so specific and of course, that just set myself up for failure — sigh…….I guess I’m just not disciplined enough. So, instead of Resolutions, I make “Goals” for the New Year. The great thing about Goals over Resolutions for me is that my goals are not carved in stone and can change over time, can become completely irrelevant, or even get carried over into the next year. Know what I mean?

That being said, here are my Goals so far for the New Year:

  • Eat more healthfully and get more active
  • De-clutter, downsize, and organize
  • Finish more projects
  • Use my stash more efficiently
  • Save more money
  • Stick to a regular daily work schedule
  • Find more time for creativity
  • Change what I can and accept what I cannot change
  • Be kind

I find that if I actually write my Goals down and review them once in a while, then I am more likely to accomplish them, or at least break them down into smaller steps so I am working my way towards the finish line. I keep a list of my Goals (written in pencil) in the front of my yearly planner. Sometimes I add more Goals throughout the year, change a Goal completely or even erase it if it no longer makes sense to me. Basically, I think it really all boils down to beginning and maintaining new habits.

Speaking of the New Year, it’s the Thursday after the first Friday of the month, which means NEW Rose Card Quilt Patterns! Yay!

January 2024 VRD Rose Card Quilt Patterns

January’s patterns are awesome, aren’t they? Lucky you, you can get the set of 5 patterns for the special price of $8.95 HERE.

Please join me in warmly welcoming our newest designers, Rachelle of Rachelle Handmade and Deanne of Creative Sewlutions! Welcome Rachelle and Deanne! Hopefully soon, we’ll have Designer Spotlights here on the blog so everyone can get to know the two of you better. 

Yep, there’s a new table runner pattern for Janaury, too. It’s called Snowberry and you can get it HERE.

Did you know you can get the New Rose Card patterns delivered right to you mailbox every month? You can sign up to get just the 5 monthly patterns HERE or you can get the 5 monthly patterns plus table runner(s) HERE.

But wait — there’s MORE!

If you missed last week’s blog post, I debuted our very special NEW Collection of patterns in partnership with the Quilts of Valor Foundation (QOVF). The collection features 12 Rose Card patterns that meet the size requirements for a QOV quilt. And of course, they are FAST and FUN patterns! 

You can get the collection of 12 QOV patterns for the amazing price of $14.95 HERE. AND, a portion of the sales will be donated to the QOVF. It’s a win-win-win for you, for the QOVF, and for Villa Rosa Designs! 

This collection of QOV patterns is sew inspiring that I challenge you to get together with a group of your quilty pals and make some quilts to donate to your local QOV organization. You can check HERE to find your closest QOV chapter. Maybe you’ll join and support the QOVF’s mission to get quilts into the hands of veterans and active service members.

Quilting Together

I know I’ve talked about getting together with your quilt posse before, but with a brand new year, it’s time to make some plans to quilt together. Quilting together is not a new idea at all, our grandmothers and their grandmothers gathered together to make quilts as well as to work on hand-sewing projects. Quilting circles were very popular during the Civil War, while women and girls did their part for the war effort by sewing for the soldiers, often their fathers and sons, neighbors and friends. My point is that quilting together is an important part of quilting and sewing and has been for generations.

This vintage photo shows a group of women hand-quilting a Double Wedding Ring quilt in the 1930’s or 1940’s. See the young lady at the end on the left, she’s a lefty like me. Just sayin’!

Here are some great benefits we get when we quilt together:

  • Social Connection, Community, and Friendship
  • Sharing and Collaboration
  • Learning New Skills
  • Improving Existing Skills
  • Teaching Others
  • Self Esteem and Confidence
  • Stress Relief and Relaxation (for some quilters, anyway)

Quilt Guilds are a continuation of the quilting bees and sewing circles of the past. I’ve been a member of the Free Spirit Quilters for quite some time now. And I know I’ve talked about my Friday Quilt Class/Group here on the blog before and how important those ladies are to me. Additionally, I have several friends (yes, I have friends [eye roll here]) with whom I get together to sew. It might be hand-sewing hexies while watching tennis or mysteries on TV or sewing all day in a friend’s newly set-up quilt room. And as part of my decluttering, downsizing, and organizing goal, I hope to get a second workspace set up in my studio so I can have a friend over to quilt with me in my space, too.

When I was a Girl Scout a long time ago, I can remember singing the song “The More We Get Together.” Do you remember this song? 

The more we get together,

Together, together,

The more we get together,

The happier we’ll be.

For your friends are my friends

And my friends are your friends.

The more we get together,

The happier we’ll be.

Written by Irving King

This is Quilting to me.

Sew. Laugh. Quilt Together. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @ VRD

Just Quilty Stuff · quilt market · Rose Cards · villa rosa designs

NEW November VRD Rose Card Quilt Patterns and International Quilt Festival Quilts

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Here I sit at the Hobby airport grabbing some lunch while I wait for my flight back to good ol’ Pennsylvania. Wow! What an awesome Quilt Market and Festival! I am so excited to get back to my studio and get to work on new projects — my head is just exploding with inspiration and ideas.

I did figure out how to get Harold the quilt home — I bought a duffel bag at WalMart since I’d only brought one suitcase and “2 bags fly free.” The only problem with the duffel is that with only Harold in it, it was kind of empty so I just had to shop for awesome cool stuff at Festival to fill it up so Harold wouldn’t be lonely on the trip home. So sad, huh? I’ll be showing you some of my favorites in next week’s post, so stay tuned……

Now let me show you our NEW VRD Rose Card patterns for November.

NEW November Villa Rosa Designs Rose Card Quilt Patterns

Yay! It’s the Thursday after the first Friday of the month and you know what that means — NEW PATTERNS!

Aren’t they great??? As always, you can get the set of 5 regular patterns for the special price of $8.95 HERE.

We’re happy to welcome our newest Villa Rosa Designs designer — Deanne Moore of Creative Sewlutions. Most of you are probably already familiar with her classic Oh Henry pattern — Deanne selected the most popular size for her Rose Card Oh Henry pattern. Find the kit, featuring fabric from Wild Wander, HERE. And Deanne’s other new pattern, Messages is just tons of fun, isn’t it?

Peking Duck is an awesome pattern by Heidi to showcase those gorgeous large prints you just cannot cut up. I’m thinking Charley Harper fabrics would look great in her pattern, what do you think?

Molly’s fast and fun pattern Underline would also look great with larger prints or novelties paired with an accent. This is a good size for a kid’s quilt. You can find the kit HERE.

And don’t forget Farmhouse Blues, my new November pattern. I was sew inspired by the blue and white Moda collection, Blueberry Delight, that I just had to design a quilt around it. I had the most fun photographing it on my Dad’s vintage tractor. I think this is one of my best cover photos ever.

Here’s the original uncropped photo for the Farmhouse Blues cover. Definitely one of my favorite covers ever!

Molly created a sample using the red, white, and blue collection, Patchwork Americana by P&B. You can find the kit HERE.

Molly’s version of Farmhouse Blues, available as a kit.

I’m sorry that we don’t have a table runner for this month — there just wasn’t enough time to get everything ready and to press before Market and Festival. We will have a runner coming for December, though, so hang in there.

Now let’s get back to Quilt Market and Festival!

Quilts of Quilt Market and Festival

During Festival, I was able to spend quite a bit of time enjoying the quilts on display. Oh my goodness, talk about amazing and inspiring! I was really blown away with the creativity and skill. Truly amazing! Pair all of the quilts with all of the shopping and you have an amazing experience. If you haven’t attended Festival, I really urge you to go to one sometime, you won’t be sorry. I do suggest that you plan for at least 2 days, although staying for the entire show would be awesome. There is absolutely no way you can see and experience everything in just one day. It really is sensory overload, so a couple days is a must so you don’t get too overwhelmed.

Anyway, I thought I’d share some of the amazing quilts on display. In the image after each quilt, I’ve included the maker information. Please enjoy my little slide show!

Well, that’s it for me this week. I hope you stop in next week for another little slide show and my favorite finds from Quilt Market and Festival. Until then, spend some quality time with your sewing machine!

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD

Blog Hop 2023 · Rose Cards · villa rosa designs

Villa Rosa Designs Fast & Fun Blog Hop Winners AND New VRD Rose Card Patterns for February 2023

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Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

YIPPEE!

It’s my favorite Thursday — the Thursday after the first Friday of each month when I get to show off our NEW monthly Rose Card Patterns.

Unfortunately, I was so wrapped up in the Blog Hop that I didn’t get a new table runner turned in for February’s release. Guess you’ll have to wait until next month for a new table runner pattern. In the meantime, you can check out all of our VRD table runners HERE.

So, without further ado — here are February’s new Rose Card patterns:

Aren’t they AWESOME????

I am particularly intrigued by Helix and hope to have a new tutorial on the blog for Helix soon. And Neptune is certainly calling me, too.

Which one is your favorite?

Of course, you really don’t have to choose because you can get all 5 for the low low price of $8.95 HERE.

The Blog Hop WINNERS!

Bet you never thought I’d ever get around to announcing the winners of the Blog Hop. WOW! There really were A LOT of winners — each participating blogger chose 4 winners (1 to win a set of the Blog Hop patterns and 3 to win Sponsor Prizes) and 2 names to go into the Grand Prize drawing.

Well, after a couple weeks of getting things organized, winners contacted, and everything wrapped up, I am finally ready to reveal the winners. Almost ALL the prizes were claimed, but there were a few winners who never responded.

And guess what???? The winners came from all over the US, from Canada, and even from Australia!

I know a lot of you commented that you’d like to see another blog hop in the future. Maybe we’ll do this again, but for now we all need a little break. Whew! And the next thing I need to do is get all the prizes shipped out to all the lucky winners.

One last thank you to all of our participating bloggers and Blog Hop Sponsors! THANK YOU!!!

And finally — here are the winners in no particular order:

Quilt Winners:

Candie in CA

Elaine in KY

Linda in FL

Jacomina in VA

Leslie in NC

Nikki in VA

Blog Hop VRD Card Set Winners:

Suzanne in NY

Rachel in IA

Peggi in KS

Kathy in CA

Beth in OR

Donna in Canada

Anja in Canada

Karen in IA

Janice in MO

Linda in HI

Cathy in Canada

Lori in CA

Bonnie in Canada

Susan in NY

Pamela in TX

Wendy in MI

Darlene in IN

Barb in NE

Alison in Australia

Sponsored Prize Winners:

Nancy in CA

Karen in PA

Michelle in IA

Kathy in IA

Patty in ND

Shirley in IA

Karen in MA

Donna in FL

Kim in PA

Lisa in KY

Lezlie in NC

Bridget in NY

Pamela in PA

Anne-Marie in IN

Robin in CA

Rosa in MI

Gaynel in PA

Sandy in TN

Sandra in NY

Patti in PA

J. in WA

Pat in MI

D. in NY

Nikki in VA

Sherri in AZ

Renea in IA

Darlene in CA

Jocelyn in FL

Margaret in TX

Dawn in IN

Bridget in AZ

Donna in CA

Laurie in IL

Susan in NM

Sandy in OR

Barbara in UT

Becky in IA

Joanna in MA

Cheryl in IL

Joy in NC

Darlene in IN

Kay in MA

Mildred in PA

Jennifer in NY

Karen in MD

Kim in UT

Marvel in SD

Rosalie in TX

Joyce in TN

Sherri in CA

Grand Prize Winners: Will be announced next week

Congratulations to all of the winners! I promise — your prizes will be in the mail shortly. Thank you for your patience.

Well, I guess that’s it for me for this week.

Take care and I’ll see you all next Thursday!

Until then —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @ VRD

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

VRD Hillside Charm Quilt Tutorial and the NEW November Rose Card Patterns

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Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

After talking about our VRD Rose Card patterns featuring quilt panels a couple weeks ago, I thought it would be fun to do a series of Panel Quilt Tutorials for you. You can find the Panel post HERE.

There’s no way I would be able to do ALL of the Rose Cards I featured in the Panel post, but I thought it would be fun to do some of my favorites. I hope these Panel Quilt tutorials will inspire you to reduce your own stash of panels by making quilts — what an unusual thing to do with fabric, right???

So let’s make Hillside Charm! I just really love this Panel pattern — it looks great with whatever panel and fabrics you use. Don’t have 5″ charm squares? Cut fat quarters, scraps, or even yardage into the number of squares you need. Want to make it bigger? Add another border? Want it smaller? Don’t add the extra border. LOVE LOVE LOVE Hillside Charm! You can buy the pattern HERE.

Right now we even have some great Hillside Charm kits for sale on the website — Halloween, Christmas and more — so check them out HERE.

Before we jump into the tutorial, I have to do a SHOUT OUT to Hoffman Fabrics and a big thank you to them for providing the fabrics for this Hillside Charm Quilt. The collection is called Wading with Water Lilies. Isn’t it beautiful? In addition to the gorgeous digitally-printed panel and coordinates, I also used some of the basics from the 1895 Watercolors collection and 885 Dot Batiks collection.

YAY! We have the panel and some of the coordinates on the website. You can find them HERE. Grab them now because when they’re gone, they’re gone!

The gorgeous panel. Just look at the amazing array of colors that digital printing can create!
These are the companion fabrics.
Here are the accents I used from 1895 and 885.

Now you’ve seen the fabrics, lets get to the tutorial!

Hillside Charm Tutorial

The first thing I did was trim the panel to the dimensions listed in the pattern. Sigh……I really hated cutting anything off this amazing panel but if I wanted to make the quilt, it had to be done. So I did it. I also cut out the squares and the strips. The pattern actually calls for a pack of charm squares, but since I didn’t have an actual charm pack, I went ahead and cut the squares I needed. I won’t have as much variety as I would have with a charm pack, but it will still be beautiful. Sometimes, less is more.

Next I sewed the side strips on to the panel. Then I sewed squares to the ends of the top and bottom strips before sewing them into the panel. It’s already taking shape. I’m really excited about this quilt — it is going to be really gorgeous!

Time to sew my charm squares into strips for the next border. I just had to make sure not to sew 2 of the same fabric side to side. Easy peasy.

Here you can see that I took the time to pin the pieced charm square strip to the framed panel. This is an important step because I don’t want my quilt to be a funny shape. Nope, I like ’em squared up as much as I can as I go along. And one of the best ways to do that is to match your centers and your ends and pin generously.

Yay! Let’s sew the pinned charm square side borders on. Sigh….I must admit I hate removing my pins as I sew and I am guilty of sewing over my pins. Mea culpa.

Here are the pieced charm square borders added to the sides. I am so excited how this quilt is coming together.

Now let’s add the top and bottom charm square pieced strips. Pin, pin, pin. Sew, sew, sew. I really like how the pieced border is giving the look of Four Patch blocks in the corners. Tricky, tricky!

More side borders to add. This time I have to be more careful with the placement of the squares so that I don’t accidentally line up 2 of the same fabric, especially since I’m not using as much variety as a charm pack would provide (although, nowadays there are lots of duplicates in a charm pack because fabric collections are a lot smaller than they used to be).

Here are my last borders — the top and bottom pieced borders. Now you can see the rectangles of the blue/green marbled fabric at each corner, mimicking the inner blue/green marbled inner border. Cool detail!

DONE!

I can’t wait to see your Hillside Charm Quilts! You can email your Hillside Charm photos me at tricia@villarosadesigns.com and I’ll share them on the blog and Facebook.

Thanks for sewing along with this tutorial. Stay tuned for another tutorial next week.

Wait! I can’t go yet without showing you the NEW November Rose Card patterns.

Check out these awesome new patterns. If you attended Quilt Market or Festival last week, you already had a sneak peak. Lucky you!

Oh look! Another Panel quilt! You can buy the November set of 5 Rose Cards HERE for $8.95.

This is my new table runner, Baskets, for this month:

You can buy the Baskets pattern HERE.

As always, shipping is free.

I hope you find a little time to get sewing because the Holidays are right around the corner and if you are like me, you have a long list of quilty gifts you want to make even though you know you’ll never get them all finished. The New November Rose Cards could help you jump start your holiday sewing! Just sayin’….

Until next Thursday —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD

Basic Quilting Skills Series · Rose Cards · Tips and Tricks · villa rosa designs

NEW September 2022 Villa Rosa Designs Rose Card Quilt Patterns and Basic Quilting Skills for Beginners: Pressing Techniques 101

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Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

I am thrilled to show you our NEW September Rose Card patterns! I can’t wait until the first Fry-Day (Friday) of each month when the new set of patterns is released — it’s always great to see what our awesome VRD designers have come up with. You can see the new patterns first if you have joined the email list to receive our VRD email newsletters.

What??!! You don’t get our newsletter??? You can sign up for our newsletter HERE.

Of course, I follow up with the newest patterns on the next Thursday after the patterns are released each month here on the blog in case you missed them in the newsletter.

Well, here they are! Cue the trumpets! Throw the confetti! Applause!

September’s NEW Rose Cards

You can order all 5 cards HERE for the low low price of $8.95.

But WAIT…….there’s MORE! (Sorry, not sorry — you know how much I love saying this.)

Here’s my September table runner, Maple Grove!

Maple Grove

You can buy the Maple Grove pattern HERE.

There are also kits for some of the September Rose Cards — did someone say KITS??? Each kit comes with the fabric for the top and binding as well as the pattern. You can find kits below, for as long as they last.

Berry Smoothie

Mazed

Pumpkin Pie

Of course, our website, www.villarosadesigns.com, is always stocked with great kits. You can see our current kit offerings HERE. You’re sure to find one…..or maybe a hundred that you can’t live without.

Pressing Techniques

Let’s dive right back into our Basic Quilting Skills for Beginners with Pressing Techniques 101.

I bet you never really thought about the concept that there are different kinds of pressing techniques for different types of projects. Well, I’m here to tell you that how you use an iron for quilting is different than how you use an iron to iron your shirts or pants.

There’s ironing. And then there’s pressing.

According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

(to) iron

1a : to smooth with or as if with a heated iron iron a shirt

1b : to remove (something, such as wrinkles) by ironing

(to) press

5 : to exert pressure (this is the closest definition for pressing with an iron I could find)

You can see a little difference between the two definitions, can’t you? Ironing requires moving the iron around while pressing is more of an up and down motion.

I found this pretty decent YouTube video from Hobby Lobby about the difference between pressing and ironing along with some tips. You can check out the video HERE.

Over the years, I’ve tried a lot of different irons from cheap travel models to expensive specialty irons. Some irons are hotter than others. Some have more weight so you don’t have to press down as hard. Some have longer cords or are larger models. Some have continuous steam or bursts of steam. So many choices, but it all depends on what you want out of your iron and what your budget is. So look around, test out different models and brands. Find the one you like the best, for what you want to do, don’t just go for the most expensive or the least expensive.

Pink Oliso Iron

One of the coolest irons in my opinion is the Oliso iron. It lifts up after so many seconds so there’s no chance that you will burn your fabric or project by pressing too long or forgetting about the iron in the down position. AND they come in a bunch of really pretty colors! You can usually find Oliso irons at your local quilt shop or your favorite online vendor.

Here’s a great YouTube video by SewVeryEasy about what to look for in an iron as well as lots of tips and tricks. You can check out the video HERE.

Some quilters swear by using the steam function of their iron for pressing. Me, I like a dry hot iron for quilting AND I love to use Mary Ellen’s Best Press Starch Alternative. A long time ago, I used spray starch in the can, but got tired of the little flakes and the shiny spots on my fabrics, so when I found Best Press, it was a total game changer for me.

Mary Ellen’s Best Press Spray

A little spritz is all you need. Best Press helps me to get crisper flatter seams without having to work very hard, which then helps my quilt fabrics to stay square and not to stretch out of shape. An added bonus is that Best Press comes in many fun scents and also comes in unscented, too. My personal favorite scent is Peaches and Cream. You can find Best Press at your local quilt shop or favorite online vendor.

I hope these pressing techniques and tips are helpful! Stay tuned for next week’s post all about batting, backing, and preparing a quilt for quilting.

Until next Thursday —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD