Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you! I hope you are having a great week. Mine is moving right along at breakneck speed. It’s kind of scary — the older I get, the faster time passes. It reminds me of a quip by a family friend once — “I thought I saw someone I knew on my way in. Oh! It was only me on my way out!” Ha ha!

Funny, but not funny.

How do you find time to devote to your quilting habit or other creative endeavor?

Here’s my top 5 list to squeeze in more sewing time:

5. Stay up late or get up early (my least favorite, but it works in a pinch)

4. Have everything I need in one place before I start a project so I can use my sewing time without having to stop to find what I need next

3. Let someone else do the driving — you wouldn’t believe how much binding I can get done on shopping trips

2. Make smaller projects — I love making table runners, wall quilts, baby quilts, and throws. Smaller projects use less fabric than giant bed quilts too, just sayin’

1. Rose Cards! (Bet you saw that one coming. LOL!)

Rose Card Storage Ideas

Rose Cards aren’t just fun little patterns, they are highly addictive to collect. As there are over 400 different patterns in print right now (with more added every month), your Cards might be piling up. Mine are!

Sew, what do you do with your Cards when you’re not using them?

I’ve even noticed some discussions on our Facebook page recently about how people store their Rose Cards — thank you for sharing! This really made me start re-thinking my whole storage system, which isn’t really working for me anymore.

When I started collecting them in 2010, I put mine in little photo albums.

At first, an entire year’s worth of Cards fit in one album with pages to spare. But later, as more and more Cards were published each year, one album just wasn’t enough.

This worked for years, but now I have a bunch of little albums arranged with dates on the covers and it’s hard to find a specific Rose Card, unless I know what year it came out. Now what?

On Facebook, someone mentioned using small clear boxes and alphabet tabs. I thought I’d try this idea and will alphabetize them by name, instead of keeping all the Cards from a specific year together.

Since this is my new method, I don’t know how well it’s going to work for me yet. I’ll have to live with it for a while. You’ll have to check back in later to find out how well this method works for me.

Last week end, I attended a quilt show and some quilters even offered me more ideas when we were talking about Rose Cards. Like my idea of organizing them alphabetically in a plastic storage box, a friend suggested a vintage recipe box. I really liked this idea — it would be especially meaningful if you had your mother or grandmother’s vintage recipe box because you would think of her every time you pulled out a Rose Card to use. Nice!

Another idea someone shared with me was using a ring binder filled with the clear plastic pocket inserts used to store baseball cards. A plus with this idea is that you can see the front and back without taking the cards out of the sleeves. But I’m not sure that would help me find a specific card I was looking for.

Maybe you could also get dividers and organize your Cards into different categories — whatever made sense to you! Wouldn’t it be great to group Cards by the fabrics used — like fat quarters, charm squares, strips, yardage, panels, etc.? Or by the size or type of quilt — like table runner, baby quilt, throw, bed quilt?

I’m curious — how do you organize your Rose Cards?

VRD Invites You…

Did you enjoy the Bear Hugs story last week? Now every time I look at that pattern or see photos of someone’s version of the quilt, I will think of little J and his surprise entry into the world.

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

Please email your quilt story and original photo along with the name of 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 in the mail! Can’t wait to hear your quilt stories!

Until next Thursday —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD