Tag: sewing tutorial

Quilting Partners · Rose Cards · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

VRD Duffy Quilt Tutorial

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Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

Summer time. Summer time. Sum-sum-summertime.

Don’t you just love classic summertime songs, especially from the 1950’s and 60’s? I do! When I was a kid in the summertime, we camped every weekend and probably every Friday and Saturday night we were all hanging out around a campfire with our camping friends, sharing stories and roasting hot dogs, making s’mores and camper pies. We’d have the Saturday night oldies program (Cousin Brucie, I think?) blaring on the radio and we’d all be singing along.

Ahhhhh, those were the days……. Thinking back, my wonderful childhood memories growing up in the 1970’s and 1980’s, lead me to yet another classic song, Time in a Bottle.

Image created by moi in Photoshop

I am happy to share that my sewing machine is finally up and running again on my new-to-me Koala Quiltmate III sewing table. YAY! This table is such a better height for little short me (under 5′ 4″ on a tall day) and I feel more comfortable now with my chair lower along with more leg room under the table, too. My old cabinet was lovely but a bit too tall for me and there wasn’t much leg room so I always felt crowded.

Hooray! Let’s hear it for new-to-you sewing tables! OH! I also bought a new cover for my old sturdy sewing chair to freshen it up from its drab 1980’s dark green tweed. Now to finally get the arms taken off my chair which will make “bellying up” to my machine much easier.

Please excuse my mess in the photo, but I am still sorting out my sewing area. I’m getting there….slowly. The important thing is I CAN SEW AGAIN!

Now that I can sewing again, I’m thrilled to put together another Summer Tutorial for you! I chose Duffy for a several reasons —

  1. It’s super quick
  2. I had a new fabric collection from Studio E ready to go
  3. It’s July’s Top Along selection for Running Doe’s 2024 Top Along
  4. Who doesn’t love making Christmas Quilts in July?

Sew, let’s get started!

VRD Duffy Quilt Tutorial

My fabric today is from one of our friends and quilting partners, Studio E — thank you! The collection is called ‘Tis the Season and it is shipping to quilt shops as I write this, so make sure to ask for it at your local quilt shop. Duffy is one of the featured patterns for Studio E’s ‘Tis the Season collection. Pretty cool, huh? VRD is popping up everywhere!

I’m using the gorgeous holiday birdhouse block fabric from the collection for my focal print in the blocks. Lucky me, the square are just the right size.

I don’t usually enjoy making swiss cheese out of my fabric (or, fussy cutting, if you prefer that term), but I didn’t mind with this project because I was cutting the printed blocks out, which really only left bits and pieces of the black swirl fabric between the blocks. I love that I even had a ruler to rotary cut the correct size square for the pattern.

The squares are ready, so let’s cut the rest of the fabrics.

Now it’s time to get down to the business of putting this delightful quilt together!

Please note there are 2 blocks in this quilt — the block is the same, but the fabrics are different in each one. As you make your own quilt, please make sure to keep your fabrics organized.

Let’s make our Flying Geese units for the first block. Layer a square RST on the right side of the Block 1 rectangle. Draw a line from the top left corner of the square to the opposite bottom corner and sew on the line. Cut 1/4″ away from the line. Feel free to save the cutaway triangles for another project (PSST! Sometime in the future I plan to create a pattern using all those cutoff triangles, so tuck them away until then). Open the unit and press towards the triangle.

Okay, let’s make the left side of our Flying Goose unit. Place the square RST on the left side of the rectangle this time. Draw a line from the bottom left corner of the square to the top right corner and sew on the line. Trim 1/4″ away from the line and save your cutoff triangles if you wish. Press open.

Voila! One Flying Goose unit.

Did you know that the center large triangle is the goose while the smaller outside triangles are the wings???

Now we are going to repeat the steps above to make Flying Geese units for the second block.

Check! Flying Geese units for both blocks are done.

Moving on, we are going to start making our quilt blocks. I told you this quilt goes together quickly, didn’t I?

Sew Flying Geese units to the sides (or in my case in the photos, the top and bottom) of the focal print square. I pressed my seams towards the center square.

Next sew Block 1 (OOPS! or 2 in my case — don’t ask me why I did things backwards here….) squares to the ends of 2 Flying Geese units. Then sew to the top and bottom (or sides in my case) of the focal print square. I pressed my seams towards the center. Make 6 Block 1s.

Okay, now on to Block 2 (or 1 in my case). Repeat the steps we did for Block 1 (or 2 for me). For Block 2, I pressed my seams towards the Flying Geese units, hoping that by doing so will make my seams nestle nicely together when I sew the blocks together. Make 6 Block 2s.

Woohoo! Super fast. Told you!

The blocks are done and let’s take a look at 2 variations of the quilt — all I did was change the placement of Block 1 and Block 2.

I bet there are lots of other variations, especially if you play around with your fabric placement.

These 2 are pretty much the same since it’s just switching the blocks, but which one do you like better? Which one do you think I chose?

If you guessed the second photo, you are right! Now it’s time to sew the blocks together.

I found that most of my seams did indeed nestle together. For the couple that were being stubborn, I forced them to behave.

It turned out really cute, don’t you think??? I really like the secondary designs that pop out. Because Duffy is baby quilt sized, I might just add an outer border to make it into a small throw-sized quilt because I just don’t have extra wall space for quilts.

Which brings me to some final thoughts for you about Duffy:

  1. Add a border (or 2) to make it bigger — I’m thinking maybe a 6″ finished border as I have another fabric from the collection that I didn’t use.
  2. Make more blocks to make the quilt bigger — just make sure you purchase enough fabric.
  3. You could use Duffy as a jumping off point and add a series of pieced or appliqued borders, using Duffy as the quilt center.
  4. You could add sashing between the blocks to give it an entirely different look and make it a bit bigger. When I add sashing to a quilt, I usually stick with cutting my strips 2 1/2″ wide.

Well, I hope you will have fun making your own Duffy quilt. I’d LOVE to see them so please share on our VRD Facebook Page.

Enjoy your summer! Do something fun with the ones you love. And don’t forget to squeeze in a little quilting.

See you next week, same time same place —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @ VRD

Quilting Partners · Rose Cards · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

VRD Dusk Delight Quilt Tutorial

rosecards4 Comments

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

I’ve been thinking about ideas for summer posts and I think I’ll do a series of Summer Quilt Tutorials. Creating tutorials gives me a reason for getting some sewing in AND I have a stack of wonderful kits just waiting for me to make into quilts. The only problem with making a bunch of tops will be getting them quilted. LOL!

I can’t promise one tutorial a week over the summer, but I will definitely try. I may need to alternate tutorials with text posts because sometimes making the top and doing the photography takes me longer than a week to get ready, especially as summers get busier and busier.

Well, let’s get to it.

I chose Dusk Delight as my first summer tutorial because this pattern has been on my mind recently. I’ve done a few “digital” quilt mock ups with it recently and it really resonated with me for some reason. Maybe because of the controlled scrappy look? Or perhaps the vertical arrangement? Whatever it was, I was itching to make this one. Isn’t it wonderful that I had a quilt kit to make one???

Dusk Delight goes together easily, but I will caution you that making a big stack of blocks does take a little time. The assembly is not difficult, but can take some time to get everything put together. I would call Dusk Delight a quilt that you can make in a long weekend.

Read on!

VRD Dusk Delight Quilt Tutorial

Get your Dusk Delight physical pattern HERE or your digital pattern HERE.

Here’s the fabric I’m using for my Dusk Delight quilt. I just love pairing Hoffman batiks with our VRD Rose Card patterns! I’m using an 1895 Watercolors batik for the block centers and the vertical strips and a Bayshore Bali Pop for the blocks. I can’t wait to see how this turns out because I just love these beachy colors!

The first thing we’re going to do is cut all of our fabrics. We need block centers, vertical strips, and 2 sizes of rectangles for the blocks.

Here’s a couple tips for working with batiks:

  1. Start with a new machine needle because a dull needle will only damage the fabric.
  2. Use leaders and enders so that your machine doesn’t try to eat your fabrics at the beginning of a seam. Want to know more about leaders and enders? Check out this post HERE.

For my leaders and enders, I ‘m using a stack of green and white triangle cut-offs from a previous project. Who knows? Maybe I’ll get another little project out of these cut-off triangles.

Okay, let’s make blocks! A lot of blocks….

  1. Sew a small block rectangle to the side of a block center.
  2. Sew a matching rectangle to the other side of the block center.
  3. Take a moment and press your unit so far. This helps to keep the block square as you add the next pieces.
  4. Sew a big rectangle to the side of the unit.
  5. Then sew the last matching rectangle to other side of the unit.
  6. Press your block and voila! One block done.
  7. Now make 39 more blocks! LOL!

Another tip — I made 5 or 6 blocks at a time so that I didn’t get the rectangles too mixed up as I sewed. This went faster than sewing a single block together at a time.

Oh goody! Now one of my favorite things — laying out the blocks. Of course, sometimes this part of the quilt-making process takes me longer than actually sewing everything together. The more I look at the arrangement, the more I move things around. But I do definitely love mixing and matching the colors….

To help me arrange the blocks, I put all the blocks and the vertical strips up on my handy dandy flannel board. It really is handy dandy — I use it way more than I ever thought I would. I have no idea why it took me so long to put one up. The only issue I ran into was that the quilt was longer than my board, so I had to do some creative layering at the bottom so I could see the bottom 2 block rows.

If you’re experiencing flannel board envy, let me tell you how to have your own handy dandy flannel board in a matter of minutes with very little cost. I stole this idea from my quilty pal, Mary Lee (Hi Mary Lee!), who has one up tacked to the top of a set of double doors that lead to her front enclosed porch (which she uses for storage).

Go ahead and get yourself a rectangular flannel backed tablecloth. You will want a heavy duty one with a thicker flannel on the back so that it will grab and hold your fabrics. They do come in different sizes — mine is 50″ x 72″ — so you can choose the one that fits your space. Now that it’s the good ol’ summertime, it’s the perfect time to find your very own flannel backed tablecloth.

There are lots of different ways to put your flannel backed tablecloth up. I use binder clips to clip my tablecloth to the top row doors of my cube storage wall. This way, I can remove it when I need to. If yours is removable like mine, you could even use it as a tablecloth so make sure to pick out a fun pattern on the front that matches your outside decor.

Well, I guess I’ve got the blocks arranged the way I want them…..maybe…….

So let’s sew them together before I change my mind again. LOL!

I’m going to sew the outside blocks together into rows before I tackle the center block section.

Now that the outer blocks are sewn together, I can no longer move them around.

Before I start the center block section, I need to piece my vertical strips together to make longer strips. I don’t want to forget to do this step or else my strips won’t be long enough.

Sew…..sew……sew. Press…..press…..pres…… Yay! The center section blocks are now sewn together. Of course, I had to play switcheroo a couple — or maybe a dozen — times before I sewed them together.

Wait! Which way do I want the center section? Gah! I’m still not done arranging, even though the blocks are sewn together. Which one do I like better — right side up in the left photo or upside down in the right photo. Decisions…..decisions…….

Which ever one I choose, this will be the final arrangement. Of course, I could flip the whole quilt upside down……ARGH!

I take it back, maybe arranging the blocks isn’t my favorite step after all!

Before I can sew the vertical sections together, I need to cut my vertical strips to the right length. Holding my breath here that it will be the perfect length. Of course it will, right?

Time to sew again. I pinned the vertical strip to the inside edge of each of the outer single block sections, matching centers and outside edges before stitching them together.

This part looks easy in the photos but it took me quite a while because my work space is so cramped right now. It was like wrestling an alligator from time to time.

I matched up the centers and ends of the left section with the left side of the center section. I crossed my fingers that the blocks would be decently lined up across the vertical strip.

Then I lined up, pinned, and sewed the right section to the right side of the center section.

Yay! Top done!

Wowzer! Why was I even worried??? It turned out great and the colors are just so calming. Ahhhhh! Now to get it layered with batting and backing (or with just fleece) so I can machine quilt it……someday!

I’d love to see your Dusk Delight quilts! If you haven’t joined our rockin’ fun and uber cool Facebook Group, please do! You can find the Group HERE. And post your Dusk Delights so we can all ooooh and ahhhh over them!

Back to my summer sewing, what fun! Next week’s tutorial will be a table runner, so stop back next Thursday to see which one.

Until next week —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD

Quilting Partners · Rose Cards · Tutorials · villa rosa designs

Blog Hop Prizes Update and a VRD Bunny Ears Snack Mat Quilt Tutorial

rosecards4 Comments

Hello Quilty Friends!

Happy Thursday to you!

Another week has passed us by and the only things I’ve sewn recently are my samples for this Bunny Ears Snack Mat tutorial. LOL! I hope you had better luck this past week getting some sewing in. I keep gazing at my collection of VRD Rose Cards as well as petting my fabrics and my sewing machine looks lonely across from me as I write here at my desk, but I just can’t seem to find enough time to actually get something going on my machine. Somehow I need to find a pocket of time — maybe I should sleep less so I can quilt more. But, no, that won’t work for me these days as I really do need those 8 hours of sleep a night. Ho hum…..

Update on Blog Hop Prizes

I just wanted to let everyone know that we are still working on getting everything shipped to Blog Hop Prize Winners. So far the quilts have been shipped, digital pattern collection winners have received their patterns, and prizes graciously being shipped by our lovely sponsors should be in the mail. Physical pattern collections haven’t yet been shipped but should be going out in the next couple days. I have a stack of prizes that also need to get mailed as well as the Kaffe Collection and the Mystery Box.

You may be scratching your head, wondering why it’s taking us so long to get everything sorted out and to the winners. That, my friends, is a complicated topic:

  1. We had around 28 bloggers in addition to our own blog, which really makes 29. There were prize winners on ALL of the blog post. So that’s a lot of information to put together and organize! To make things even slower, we had some winners who never replied to their winner emails, so then we had to randomly select new winners and contact them to get their information. Egads! It literally took weeks to gets all the winners selected and confirmed. Really, I’m not kidding.
  2. Prizes are being shipped from multiple locations — the quilts were shipped from the VRD shop in CA, physical pattern collections will be shipped from our pattern shipping location in MO, digital pattern collections were emailed by moi here in PA, sponsors are shipping prizes from their warehouses and office locations all over the US, and I am shipping prizes and 2 of the Grand Prizes from my little studio here in PA.

It’s crazy when you think of the logistics involved in our Blog Hop — kind of like dancing Swan Lake en pointe while trying to juggle knifes — very sharp knifes!

Happily, we should have everything out in the mail very soon. Winners hare receiving their prizes. Please continue to be patient as we get everything on its way to you.

Now, how about a fun tutorial?

VRD Bunny Ears Snack Mats Tutorial

Nothing says spring like a pair of bouncy little bunnies with extra-long ears! But before I even begin the tutorial, I need to let you know there is an update on the cutting instructions for piece B — you should have enough fabric left over to cut the updated piece, though. Please check the Corrections Page HERE for the new cutting measurement for piece B. Yes, we do have a corrections section at the bottom of our website, villarosadesigns.com, so if you ever find something on a pattern that doesn’t quite look right to you, please check the corrections page for updates.

Get your own Bunny Ears Snack Mat Rose Card physical patterns HERE or digital patterns HERE.

All right! Let’s make some cute bunnies!

The first thing we need is 2 fat quarters. Yep, just 2 FQs makes 2 adorable little Bunny Ears Snack Mats.

I chose these bright and happy spring prints from Cherry Guidry’s Full Bloom collection for Benartex for my Snack Mats.

Time to cut all the pieces out — we’re actually doing the cutting for both Snack Mats at the same time. While I cut, I’m using my ancient homemade flannel board to keep my pieces from getting lost.

Did you miss my flannel board tutorial last week? You can find it HERE.

PSST! Don’t forget to switch your pieces before your start sewing so the bunny fabric in one block becomes the background in the other!

I know it doesn’t look like much yet, but here are my pieces all laid out for both blocks and ready to sew together. Having a small flannel board is great because I can just take it right to my sewing machine from my cutting table, without dropping or losing a thing.

As all the pieces are cut and ready to go, let’s start sewing these little Bunnies together!

Place a background square right sides together on the top left corner of the Bunny Head rectangle. Draw a diagonal line and sew on the line. Then cut 1/4″ away from the sewn line and press the “flippy triangle” open. Yup, that’s what I call them — “flippy triangles” — you know, I only use the technical terms here on the blog. LOL!

To make thing easier later, press the seam towards the Bunny.

Sew “flippy corner” on the top right corner and press this seam towards the Bunny Head too. Repeat to make identical “flippy corners” on the second mat.

Voila! Now we have 2 cute little Bunny Heads (with a crazy mess for Ears right now)!

Speaking of Bunny Ears, let’s make some! Place the background squares right sides together with the Bunny Ear rectangles, lining up the outside edges at the bottom. Draw diagonal lines as shown — keep in mind you are making mirror images. Sew on the lines and cut 1/4″ away from the drawn lines. Open the “flippy corners” and press the seams towards the background fabric.

Our Bunny Ears aren’t quite finished yet because we have to add some top “flippy corners,” too. The background squares used for the top of the Ears are larger than the squares used at the bottom in the previous step so be careful not to get the top and bottom squares mixed up.

Again, we are making mirror images. Repeat this step for the second block as well. Press the seams toward the background fabric.

We now have Bunny Ears! Yay!

Next, sew the background strip between the Bunny Ears and press the seams towards the center background strip. Repeat for the second block.

Almost there, just a few more steps!

Now sew the Ear section to the top of the Bunny Head for both blocks. If you pressed the “flippy corners” towards the Bunny Head in the first step, above, then your corners should nestle together nicely.

Ladies and Gents, we now have a Bunny, or rather 2 Bunnies!

Do you see how the green stands out and the floral fabric recedes? Aren’t fabrics so much fun to play with???

The last thing to do is sew the narrow background strip to the left side of the block and the large background piece to the right side of the block. Repeat for the second block.

And there you have it — Bunny Ears Snack Mats! Next up would be layering the Mats with batting and backing, quilting them, and adding binding.

Don’t forget to label your Snack Mats!

I hope you enjoyed this super cute tutorial and have fun making your very own Bunny Ears Snack Mats. They are quick and easy to make, using only 2 fat quarters, and are great little something-somethings for all your pals, quilty ones and non-quilty ones alike! Long live cute little Bunnies! Hurray!

Until next Thursday —

Sew. Laugh. Repeat.

Always,

Tricia @VRD