Tag: plan design quilt

2025 Let's Design a Quit Together Series · Quilt Play · Rose Cards · villa rosa designs

NEW July Villa Rosa Designs Rose Card Quilt Patterns and Let’s Design a Quilt: Playing with Nine Patch Blocks

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Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

Hope you are enjoying these lazy, hazy, crazy days of summertime. Me, still making my summer to-do list. Ha Ha!

We’re just going to jump right in today because I’ve got some fun stuff for you. Yippee!

First up – NEW July patterns.

NEW July VRD Rose Card Quilt Patterns

I just love the first Thursday after the first Friday of every month because it means NEW VRD patterns.

A collage of five new quilt patterns titled 'Happy Daze,' 'Fondue,' 'Snowdrop,' 'Ixonia,' and 'Willow,' each displayed with colorful designs. The text reads 'July 2025 Patterns in a Set!' with a price of '$8.95'.

Here’s the set of 5 patterns. As always, our talented VRD designers do not disappoint! You can get the print set of 5 HERE (they are also available individually as print patterns too) or you can get the digital patterns individually below:

Happy Daze features a panel (or substitute a novelty print if you wish) in a fun modern setting. Quilt kits are still available HERE, but get yours ASAP because they’re going fast.

Fondue is also a panel quilt with a very interesting and unique setting. We still have a few quilts kits left, so get ’em HERE while they last.

Snowdrop uses your favorite collection of fat quarters. This is Pat’s latest pattern in her Tim Holtz Palette patterns. You can get the kit HERE.

Ixonia is Rachelle’s latest mod quilt. It also uses fat quarters.

Willow is a super versatile pattern – use a single fabric for the centers, panel squares, or even quilt blocks! We kitted it up with the Playgrounds collection (see below), get your kit HERE.

A colorful quilt featuring blocks with vibrant floral patterns, bordered by a black and white checkerboard design.
Willow kit in Moda’s Playgrounds collection

And here’s this month’s table runner, Bubblegum. It uses a collection of fat sixths, but works equally well with leftover Jelly Roll strips or your stash.

A colorful quilt named 'Bubblegum' designed by Tricia Lynn Maloney, featuring a patchwork layout with vibrant patterns, displayed against a textured black brick background.

Get your digital pattern HERE or your print pattern HERE.

I know it’s summer and most of us don’t quilt as much, but I think these new patterns will inspire you. Besides, VRD patterns go together like greased lightening. Make one in a weekend or even a day.

Why not get your quilty friends together for a summer sew day? You could each have a quilt top done at the end of the day and enjoy some overdue friend time, too.

Next up – let’s play with the Nine Patch block and design a quilt together.

Let’s Design a Quilt Together: Nine Patch Blocks

Nine Patch blocks were on my mind the other day. Why? Because I was thinking about antique quilts and Nine Patch blocks are one of the oldest quilt block patterns as well as one of the most humble. Have you ever gone to see an antique quilt display or perused a book about antique quilts? If you have, I bet you’ve seen A LOT of Nine Patch quilts.

I started wondering what kind of interesting designs I could create from the historic humble Nine Patch. Then it hit me – this would be a really fun blog post idea. So here we are.

It’s been a while since I’ve talked about my quilt design process. Here’s the last post I did: Let’s Design a Quilt Together — A Peek into My Quilt Design Process. In it, I used a Shoofly block as inspiration.

If you’re interested in designing your own quilts, there are several ways to do so.

1. Graph Paper

Graph paper, a pencil, and a calculator are often a designer’s first tools for creating one of a kind quilt designs. I started out with this, but quickly found I didn’t have the patience for figuring everything out all the time. I still draw lots of doodles with blocks or setting ideas, but these aren’t my primary design tools anymore.

And guess what?!? Even graph paper for quilting has evolved over time! There are many different options available these days for quilters such as quilter’s graph paper books. Some even include stencils and other goodies to help you in your design process, like C&T’s QuiltGenius Design Tool kit.

The QuiltGenius Design Tool Kit, featuring stencils, graph paper, and a booklet for quilt design.

Get your QuiltGenius kit HERE.

2. Design Workbook

A design workbook with prompts and space to draw is a step up from plain old graph paper. Last year I actually created such a workbook because I got tired of losing all my little scraps of paper when I came up with a new idea. Now I can keep all of my ideas in one place.

Colorful hexagonal quilt design featuring flowers in pastel shades with a central green hexagon, overlaid with the text 'Plan Design Quilt' and 'Tricia Maloney Orphan Quilt Designs'.

Get your copy HERE

3. Electric Quilt 8 Software

Electric Quilt 8 software by the Electric Quilt Company is a fantastic design program! I couldn’t do what I do without it. Seriously. One of the great things about this program is all the support out there so you can learn how to use it. The EQ website offers tutorials, classes, and even fun design challenges. There are books galore available to teach you all the ins and outs of the program. And EQ is always coming up with new add-ons to enhance your design capabilities.

Packaging for Electric Quilt 8 quilt design software, featuring a colorful geometric design on the front, with a computer screen displaying quilt patterns and instructions included.

Get your EQ8 HERE

So now we’ve talked about the 3 top ways to design quilts, let’s play with Nine Patches using EQ8, of course!

A Nine Patch quilt block featuring a pattern of red and white squares arranged in a 3x3 grid.

Here is our humble Nine Patch block. It uses 9 squares all the same size in a 3 square across by 3 square down layout. Easy peasy.

A colorful grid of quilt squares featuring orange, pink, blue, turquoise, red, gray, green, purple, and yellow in a 3x3 layout.

This block is a Nine Patch, too. Nobody ever said you had to use only 2 fabrics for a Nine Patch block. The 3 across by 3 down is what makes it a Nine Patch. And my personal philosophy is the more fabric, the better!

Time to play — er, design. To me designing is playing with blocks, colors, fabrics, shapes. I ask myself a lot of “What if?” questions as I go along.

What happens if we make our Nine Patch block rectangular instead of square?

A colorful Nine Patch quilt block design featuring seven squares in various bright colors: orange, pink, blue, teal, red, gray, green, purple, and yellow.

It’s still a Nine Patch, only it’s elongated. Let’s see what this block looks like in a quilt.

A colorful Nine Patch quilt block design featuring a grid of squares in various vibrant colors including red, blue, green, yellow, purple, pink, orange, and grey.

Hmmm. It doesn’t really do anything for me, but it would make a nice simple scrap quilt, wouldn’t it? Let’s add some sashing.

A colorful quilt design featuring a grid of Nine Patch blocks in various colors, separated by white sashing.

Okay, I’m liking this one better. Now I can see the individual blocks. But it’s still basically a decent scrap quilt. Let’s try taking away the sashing and adding plain alternate blocks instead.

A colorful quilt design featuring a Nine Patch block layout with vibrant squares in various colors arranged in a grid pattern.

This one’s okay, too, but it just doesn’t quite do it for me, either. I could use a cool novelty for the alternate blocks and use coordinating fabrics in the Nine Patch blocks. Let’s try that.

A colorful quilt design featuring a pattern of patches in various colors and floral prints, arranged in a grid layout.

Here is our design using Moda’s collection Acorn Hollow. I like it, but something is still missing. What do you think we need?

Let’s go back to our elongated Nine Patch block and try splitting some of the rectangles into 2 pieces so we can add more fabric.

A colorful Nine Patch quilt block featuring various squares in red, pink, white, orange, yellow, green, blue, and light blue arranged in a 3x3 grid.

Okay, that’s interesting, but now I think I want to split the other 4 patches horizontally to add movement.

Yay! Now we’re getting somewhere. I like the look of our Elongated Rainbow Nine Patch block. Like I said, designing is all about playing and exploring. Ask those “What If?” questions and you’ll be surprised where they will take you in your designing.

A colorful Nine Patch quilt block design featuring rectangular and square patches in various colors, including red, pink, white, orange, yellow, green, and blue, with black as a dominant background.

Let’s try our block in a quilt setting now.

A colorful quilt pattern composed of a grid layout featuring vertical and horizontal rectangular blocks in various vibrant colors, interspersed with black and white checkered squares.

Now that is starting to look like something. I really love the diagonal thing going on with the black rectangles. Hmmm. Let’s keep going. It still needs tweaking.

Colorful nine patch quilt layout featuring vibrant rectangles in blue, red, green, yellow, and orange, arranged against a black and white background.

With a little flip flopping and switcheroo, I discovered this layout. I am loving the elongated Four Patches in black and white that showed up when alternating blocks were turned upside down. What are your thoughts on this design?

Let’s try it in real fabric this time.

A colorful quilt design featuring a variety of rectangular and square blocks in pink, gray, and white, arranged in a patterned layout with black borders.

LOVE LOVE LOVE it! I am using a selection of Hoffman’s 1895 Watercolors batiks in pink and grey with solid black and white here. I added the solid black binding to frame everything nicely as well as accent the black in the blocks. Now it’s a finished design. And it started with a humble little Nine Patch block.

Well, that’s it for me today. I hope you enjoyed coming along on a quilt design adventure with me. After showing you how much fun I have designing a quilt, I thought maybe this would make a fun new series for the summer. What do you think? Would you like to see more of this in maybe a 4 or 5 part series using different quilt blocks as the inspiration? Any suggestions on blocks you’d like to see (think simple and pieced, though)?

See you next week, right here at Villa Rose Quilts.

Until then –

Sew. Laugh. Design. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @ VRD

Copyright and Quilting · Rose Cards · villa rosa designs

My Recent Copyright Issue and NEW Villa Rosa Quilts Rose Card Patterns for May

rosecards17 Comments

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

What a gorgeous day here in NW PA! I woke up to bright sunshine and happy bird song. I love mornings like this! We’ve had a couple wonderful summery days and it makes me so glad that I have a nontraditional career where I can get outside anytime I want to drink in the lovely weather. Lucky me….

We have so much to do today, we’d better get started.

The Last Blog Hop Prize Update

Hip! Hip! Hooray! I just shipped the last bunch of prizes yesterday — all 41 of ’em! I know those of you who won prizes and haven’t received them yet are probably getting a little anxious by now and today I’m happy to say the last of the Blog Hop prizes will be arriving shortly.

If you won a prize during the Blog Hop and do not receive it within the next couple weeks, please email me at tricia@villarosadesigns.com so I can look into it.

Again, thanks for your patience. I hope all of you winners enjoy your prizes!

Let’s keep moving!

And the Winner Is……….

Congratulations to Barbara in MA! She is our giveaway winner.

Thanks everyone for telling me about your favorite color combinations. Like you, I have lots of different combinations and it’s hard to pick just one. Wink, wink……..

If you didn’t get your own copy of Plan Design Quilt yet, you can find it HERE.

My Recent Copyright Issue

I love being a quilt designer and author, but sometimes things happen that make me so so frustrated. Recently, I had a copyright issue and I’d like to tell you about it.

I’ve talked about copyright and quilters a couple times before and you can find links to those posts here:

NEW April 2023 Villa Rosa Designs Rose Card Quilt Patterns and Revisiting the Copyright Question for Quilters

The Copyright Question for Quilters

I also want to remind you that I am not an expert in the field of US Copyright Law. What I’ve learned, I’ve learned by reading, researching, talking to others, and experiencing issues first hand. If you need expert advice or information about US Copyright Law, please seek the help of a Copyright lawyer.

Recently, a quilter familiar with our VRD Rose Card patterns emailed us with a screenshot showing the back of one of my Rose Card patterns — the instructions — posted on Facebook. The kicker was that the poster actually covered up the copyright information at the bottom of pattern, which indicated the person posting my pattern knew exactly what they were doing. Please don’t assume they just didn’t know that it was wrong or what they were doing was violating US copyright Laws — if they covered up the copyright info, then this was done completely intentionally.

I tried to check it out on FB, using the info on the screenshot to guide me, but I found out that the group was private. Now what? I ended up having to join the group so that I could address this copyright infringement. While waiting for my membership in the group to be active, I was able to look up the person who posted my copyrighted pattern instructions and I wrote a very firm message to them. I also found out that person was — of all people — an administrator of the Group!

When I was finally accepted into the group later the same day, I then posted a super firm comment showing the front of my pattern and telling all 3000+ members that I owned the copyright and I did not give permission to share my pattern instructions and that by doing so AND covering up the copyright information intentionally was a violation of US Copyright Law.

I also found out how to make an intellectual property complaint to Facebook, which I promptly did.

You can find Facebook’s Intellectual Property article which also includes a link to the form for reporting Intellectual Property abuse HERE.

Finally, the original post was taken down in the Group before Facebook even had the chance to do it (which told me that at least one of the administrators of the group knew it was wrong and deleted it before the group could get in trouble from Facebook). But it wasn’t deleted before over 3000 people had the opportunity to save/print/copy/repost my pattern. THEN I got grief from another one of the administrators who not only deleted my public posts in the group about copyright law and my rights as the copyright owner, but also told me that I should contact the guilty administrator and not post to the entire group. Seriously??? Not one person accepted responsibility for this nor did anyone even offer an apology! I am still seething about this experience.

You might wonder why this upsets me so much. Let me explain.

Sure, maybe that person originally purchased my VRD pattern for $2 before posting it on Facebook, but that did not give them the right (legally or morally) to share it with over 3000 people for free. They did not ask my permission to post my copyrighted pattern instructions — I would NEVER have given my permission to post it on Facebook anyway.

Copyright laws are there to protect intellectual property for many good reasons, including a copyright owner’s ability to earn income on their own intellectual property.

I design quilt patterns as part of my livelihood. By posting the instructions of my pattern for free on the FB Group, that person so kindly helped me (and VRD) to lose potential income — possibly more than $6000 in pattern sales, if each of the 3000+ group members had purchased their own pattern at $2 per pattern.

This all makes me second guess my desire to design and publish new quilt patterns. If designers stopped creating new quilt patterns, new quilt books, and new quilt magazine patterns featuring new techniques, new fabric collections, new tools, and new ideas then the quilt world would suffer greatly. Eventually the sale of fabric, notions, tools, rulers, etc. would suffer, which would then hurt fabric companies, publishers, advertisers, quilt shops and other quilt-related businesses. People could lose their jobs and companies and businesses could eventually go out of business. Do you see the domino effect here? Ultimately, it would hurt you, the quilter, who just wants to make beautiful quilts.

Copyright law protects ALL of us.

I appreciate you taking the time to hear my latest copyright story. And now I’ll jump off my soapbox.

Time to check out the NEW May patterns!

NEW May 2024 VRD Rose Card Patterns

Yep, it’s the Thursday after the first Friday in May, which means — NEW PATTERNS!

There are 7 — count ’em — 7 NEW patterns this month — the set of 5 that you know and love along with a table runner and a snack mat. Definitely something for everyone in this month’s patterns.

YAY! Aren’t they Fab??? You can get the set of 5 physical patterns for the special price of $8.95 HERE

I’m sorry, but we don’t offer the set as a digital pattern collection. However, the good news is that each pattern is individually available as a digital format. You can find the patterns by name on our website, villarosadesigns.com.

Here’s a pretty flower runner, perfect to whip up for Mother’s Day or just for spring — I can see you already picking out your favorite colors and fabrics for this one. You can find the runner physical pattern HERE or the digital pattern HERE.

And here’s a very spring-y fun Snack Mat pattern. Don’t you just love pinwheels??? They are so fun and happy! You can find Pinwheelies the physical pattern HERE or the digital pattern HERE.

So, which one are YOU going to make first???

Well, I’m off to take my sweet and crazy little Shih Tzu, Bailly, out for a walk to enjoy this gorgeous day. Ta Ta!

Here’s my 1 1/2 year old cutie, Bailly, who needs a haircut and a shave right now….LOL! Don’t you love her happy grin???

Until next week —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD

Tutorials · villa rosa designs

A Tutorial for Making Your Own Quilt Block Flannel Board, What I’ve been Up To (No Good, Probably!), and a Giveaway!

rosecards37 Comments

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

Now that we’re past the middle of April, spring is finally springing around here, although it’s still either cold or rainy. We’ve had so much rain here in NW PA, there is a lake in the field back behind my house. And the fun thing is that a small group (flock? gaggle?) of Canadian geese have claimed it as their very own little oasis! Silly goosies! But I do love to hear them honking out there to each other and it’s fun to see them waddling around. The lake is starting to dissipate, but we keep getting enough rain that it refills, so right now the geese are in luck.

Speaking of April, I know it’s spring when my Friday Quilt group starts meeting again. We skip January and February because those months are historically our snowiest months and usually start up again in March. I didn’t get a chance to mention my group back in March because we were all busy with the Blog Hop.

I know I’ve talked about these amazing quilting gals before and I’m so thrilled that we’re back together once a month again. I want to do a shout out to the Friday Gals — you know who you are — Hey Ladies! (If you want to know a little bit more about these Friday ladies, you can go HERE.)

You might wonder why I am talking about these gals, but for the last 2 years, we’ve been doing Villa Rosa Designs quilt projects. But his year, everyone wanted somethng a little different and everyone agreed that they wanted to go back to a sampler quilt again. It’s been quite a few years since we’ve done a year-long sampler project, so it’s time.

Farm Girl Vintage by Lori Holt of Bee in My Bonnet Co. was an easy choice for 2024 because of the fun blocks in both 6″ and 12″ finished sizes as well as a plethora of terrific projects in which you can mix and match blocks. In fact, Lori has 2 other books, Farm Girl Vintage 2 and Vintage Christmas which also use both 6″ and 12″ blocks. And guess what that means??? All the projects are interchangeable among these 3 books! WOW! In addition to some other fun quilt books, Lori has a bunch of super patterns and even a book about scrap quilting called Scrappiness is Happiness. If you’re not familiar with Lori’s designs, you should check them out.

She is a fabric designer for Riley Blake as well as an author and quilt designer. I’ve designed quilts using a few of her collections over the years — they were lots of fun. Very scrap happy and bright with a vintage vibe. You can find out more about Lori Holt HERE.

Beginning last month in March, we are going to work our way through the 12″ and 6″ blocks (as well as the delightful tractor block) in the book by making a mix of 6″ and 12″ blocks each month until December.

Here are blocks from our first get together.

I like to offer my own sampler layout when we do a year-long sampler quilt project, and this year is no different! I designed 2 different settings — one as a throw/twin and one as a full/queen. Of course, the Farm Girl Vintage book has lots of fun projects of all sizes, too, which means everyone has options! And boy, do I LOVE to have options!

I’ll give you a sneak peak at the center of my full/queen quilt (without the borders — I’ll get those on someday!). I chose a scrappy blue and white farmhouse-y color scheme and I really love how it turned out. What do you think?

After making VRD quilts for the last couple years, we couldn’t entirely abandon our VRD projects, of course, so for 2024 I set up a series of VRD quilt challenges. (You know, this could be a great idea for quilt guilds and groups or even quilt shops — just sayin’……)

Anyway, here is our challenge schedule:

June 2024 — Fat Quarter Project

August 2024 — Panel Project

October 2024 — 5″ or 10″ Charm Square Project

December 2024 — 2 1/2″ Strip Project

Of course, there are a few rules:

  1. You must complete a quilt top before we meet that month
  2. You may not use projects from classes 2022 or 2023

I’ll try to take photos when we have the Challenge quilt reveals, so you’ll have to stop back to see what VRD projects the Friday Gals create.

In our most recent meeting, our group made portable flannel boards to accommodate 12″ blocks so I thought I’d show you how we made them because everyone should have a small flannel board. This size is super to carry back and forth from your cutting area to your sewing machine or even to a quilt class, retreat, or sew day.

Make Your Own Quilt Block Flannel Board

Here’s a flannel board I made maybe 15-20 years ago. This board has seen a lot of wear and tear and the corners are all bent up, but it’s definitely stood the test of time and use because the only thing I’ve really had to do is to tighten and re-tape the fabric on the back once or twice. This board is around 12″ x 18″ and is made out of a heavy duty cardboard. It is great for smaller blocks, but doesn’t quite hold the pieces for a 12″ block, so that’s why I had the idea to make one sized for 12″ blocks.

What You Need:

A piece of sturdy cardboard or a sheet of foam core board

A piece of neutral tonal or solid quality flannel fabric as large as the board you want to make plus an additional 3-4 inches all around.

Duct tape.

I chose to use a piece of foam core from Dollar Tree (LOVE Dollar Tree!) which will actually give me 2 boards about 15″ x 15″ and a leftover long rectangle for some other project. Because the boards aren’t exactly 30″ long long, my finished boards won’t be exactly 15″ square, but that’s okay, it’s close enough for jazz. If you want your boards to be perfect squares, go ahead and measure the length of your foam core board and divide that number in half. Use a ruler to draw lines to make 2 equal boards. If you want 1 big board, you can use the whole piece of foam core, just keep in mind it will be kind of clunky to carry back and forth from your cutting area to you sewing machine to your pressing area. But if it works for you, go for it.

One you’ve drawn your lines, time to cut on the lines with a utility knife or scissors. BE CAREFUL! We don’t need any accidents on this step.

Here’s 1 board around 15″ x 15″, which will allow me to lay out the pieces for a 12″ block (or smaller). Now let’s get our flannel fabric ready. I suggest pressing it so the flannel is nice and flat before you put it on your board.

Okay, lay your flannel fabric on a flat surface with the wrong side facing up. Center your board. Then fold one side up and tape it firmly to the board. Repeat for the opposite side. Make it smooth and taut before you tape it to the back of the board.

Next up, we are going to fold the corners in on 1 of the remaining 2 sides and then tape the side to the board. Repeat for the other side, pulling the fabric smooth and taut before taping that last side. I used an extra piece of tape on each side to help keep the flannel nice and tight.

Voila! Here it is — a board block big enough to layout a 12″ or smaller block!

Wasn’t that super easy? Now you know how to make a flannel board, you can make them in any size you want, just make sure that your flannel fabric is 3-4 inches bigger all the way around your board so you have enough to wrap around and tape. (Psst! Flannel boards are great activity and story activities for kiddos, too! Use left over fabric and felt to make letters, numbers, and story pieces to delight any kiddo.)

One More Thing Before You Go…..And a Giveaway!

I’m excited to share some BIG NEWS with you — I just finished putting together my 6th book in print! Yippee! Kudos! AWESOME! (Go me!)

It’s called Plan Design Quilt and it is kind of like a workbook for designing quilts on paper. I do design a lot of my projects using Electric Quilt 8 software, but I also scribble blocks and quilt settings down whenever inspiration strikes. Usually I jot ideas down on snippets of paper, sticky notes, napkins, or whatever, and then I lose them only to find them at some later time after I have already forgotten all about that idea. Kind of disorganized, I know.

So I created this book for myself because it gives me someplace to do my little scribbles and keep them all in one place. It’s kind of cool to create a book that fulfills your own needs and then share it with the world. I tell myself that if it’s something I can use, then there are other quilters out there who might need this too. So I designed this workbook-style book with lots of space to doodle and draw quilt blocks and settings, to jot down notes, try out/add fabric swatches, and more. You can find Plan Design Quilt here. Woo Hoo!

But wait — there’s more!

To kick off this new book, I’m going to give away a copy of Plan Design Quilt right here on the VRD blog, Villa Rosa Quilts. All you have to do is leave me a comment telling me your favorite color scheme for making a quilt. I apologize, but this giveaway will be for US residents only. I haven’t decided yet if offering this book in ebook format would actually be helpful for people. Your thoughts?

Oh, almost forgot! You have from today, April 25th through Thursday, May 2nd to leave a comment. I will select a winner randomly.

Well, that’s it for me.

Take a little time to quilt this week!

Until next Thursday —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD