Huh! I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that all of a sudden it’s December. Sew much to do and sew little time……
Don’t get me wrong, I’m really excited about December starting. My quilty cuz, Kim (Hey You!), and I both purchased Quilty Christmas Advent Boxes last year in 2024, but we were both a bit disappointed so we decided to create boxes for each other this year instead of hunting around to find another one we liked. What fun!
It’s been a blast picking out fun things for Kim. Of course, I panicked at the end of November because I wasn’t ready yet! LOL! But in a flurry of wrapping paper and covered in tape, I got all 25 items wrapped up and they all fit inside the box.
We met a a local restaurant on Saturday and exchanged our boxes. Kim’s box for me was a fun surprise – the goodies in the box were all stacked up (and wrapped in Christmas sloth paper) – they didn’t fit inside the box and were sticking out all over. Joy oh joy! She didn’t even bother with a lid. Oh my! What fun December is going to be – enjoying a little Christmas every day – both the giving and the receiving as well as the sharing.
In addition to Kim’s box, I also created a box for each of my parents. I had to hustle to get all of their goodies (that’s 50 gifts) wrapped in 1 day on December 1st before dinner so we could start our December tradition on the right day. Wow! I was so tired after all of the wrapping that I didn’t put numbers on everything like I should have. Oh well, Mom and Dad will just have to reach in and pull one out to open each day until Christmas Day instead of having to hunt through their boxes every day for the right number package. And by the way, everything fit nice and neat inside their boxes and the lids closed perfectly. Just sayin’, Kim…. LOL!!!
A Gift For You
When I was trying to decide what to do this week on the blog, I had a brilliant idea – why not create a special little holiday quilt for you, our readers and VRD friends? Without you, there would be no VRD. We appreciate you each and every day. Thank you for loving VRD as much as we do.
I decided to call the little quilt I created for you, Quilt Joy. It is a happy little thing and I am looking forward to quilting and binding it. I already have someone as the recipient.
So, let’s make a quilt together!
Quilt Joy Little Quilt Tutorial
Quilt Joy, a little quilt by Tricia Maloney, finishes at 24″ x 24″
The first thing we need is our fabric, of course! For this little sweetie, I’m using a 5″ charm pack from my stash. Because I’ll need some more red, I’m adding a 2.5″ charm stack, too. And a background fabric. I’m going to make my little Quilt Joy in traditional red, green, and white, but you can make yours in any color combination or even really scrappy.
If you celebrate Hanukkah or Kwanza, you can totally use special colors for your celebrations.
I think I’ll make a blue, white, and silver one for January – but that’s getting a little ahead of myself, isn’t it?
Cutting doesn’t take much time at all! I promise. I cut my 5″ charm squares into 4 – 2.5″ squares. Zip Zap Zoop – done!
Now let’s make some Nine Patch blocks. Easy peasy.
In one of my Nine Patch blocks, I added a green square in the center. This block will be in the center of my quilt.
Okay, now let’s sew 3 blocks together with sashing in between the blocks. We need to make 3 rows.
Next we need to use 3 sashing strips along with 2 green accent squares to make a sashing row. Make 2 rows.
Now we are going to sew the sashing rows between the block rows. Isn’t this looking sew sew cute???? I am just loving this little cutie!
Add a border strip to each side of the quilt.
Now sew a green accent square to each end of the 2 remaining borders. Then sew to the top and bottom of the quilt.
Isn’t it just too adorable for words???? And in the classic traditional of Villa Rosa Designs, you can put the quilt top together in a few hours, including the cutting.
Here’s Quilt Joy for our friends who celebrate Hanukkah:
And here’s Quilt Joy for our friends who celebrate Kwanza:
Happy Happy December to You!
Holiday Gift Idea #3
For the past few weeks, I’ve shared a fun gift idea at the end of the blog for you. My Holiday Pick this week – #3 – is hot off the press – literally!
Many of you have been waiting for the collection of all 12 Seasonal Snack Mats from 2024/2025 to be released as a set and it is finally here – just in time for the Holidays! YAY! I am SEW excited!!!
Please note that at this time, it is only available as a print collection; however, each Snack Mat pattern is available individually as a digitalpattern as well as a print pattern. Don’t forget – shipping is always free on patterns at VRD.
I hope you enjoy each and every day of December this year. Please take a few moments every day to enjoy the season.
See you right here next week for more VRD fun in December.
Happy November to you! We are now in the thick of the holiday season – are you ready? How many of you are participating in the 6 Quilts in 6 Week Challenge and getting a few handmade gifts completed for holiday giving? I must admit – not me. I’m just trying to make a dent in my VRD UFO quilt stack. I’m just so thrilled that I’ve already completed 5 unfinished projects. Yay me! I just need to keep it going after our lovely Challenge ends next week.
And our lucky Week 4 winner is ………….
Susan T.
Now let’s check out my Week 5 finish!
6 Quilts in 6 Weeks – Week 5
This past week has been a busy one, so for this week, I chose a table runner to complete. I had a fun summer version of Pinwheel Picnic ready and waiting. It was a sample I made for the VRD Table Runner a Month program my Friday Group (Hey Ladies!) did maybe 3 years ago.
Have you ever made Pinwheel Picnic? It’s a fun one that goes together quickly and finishes at 16″ x 48″. It uses 5″ squares, but you could also use your stash! And it’s easy to add extra blocks to make it longer if you wanted.
I used an older fun summery fabric collection with citrus fruit and flowers by designer Sandy Gervais.
My Before Photo –
My After Photo –
I chose to quilt my runner with straight lines in orange thread about 1/2 inch apart. By no means are my lines actually straight, but I think it turned out pretty well. It will look even better once it’s washed and puckered. I stitched the quilting lines with my walking foot. The I used a solid orange for the binding and machine stitched it on with a yellow floral print for the back from my stash.
Here’s a close up of my quilting.
It really feels good to have 5 projects completed.
I can’t wait to show you what I found yesterday!
My Vintage Fabric Find
I connected to a quilter and antique quilt collector online who was relocating to Alabama. She had culled her antique textile collection before her move and I am the very lucky adopter of her leftovers. But these leftovers are fantastic! Let me show you what I got.
YIPPEE! When I emptied the plastic bags of goodies – they filled an entire laundry basket. Lynn told me she’d acquired her collection here and there, online and at antique shops, which is pretty much how my own textile museum – er, collection – has grown over the years. LOL!
There were lots of great quilt blocks, both in sets or as orphan blocks.
Some of you may know that my quilting roots started in auctions, museums, and antique fabrics long before I’d ever made my first quilt block. Back in 2010, after acquiring a local woman’s scrap bag, quilt blocks, quilts, and tops which spanned more than 100 years, I wrote my first quilt book, Orphan Block Quilts. It’s now out of print, but you can still find it as print copies or as a download.
During the pandemic, I found another love in textile history – feed sacks! So I was thrilled to find lots of feed sack pieces amongst my new textile finds as well as 3 sewn strips of Log Cabin blocks with even more feed sacks! Lucky me! Oh my! What treasures I am finding in my new basket of scraps!
I really enjoy documenting all the different patterns and designs of the feed sacks I find. I even started putting my examples into books (big surprise, right?). My first volume is available and eventually the second volume will be, too, as soon as I finish it.
Who knows? Maybe this new textile stash will inspire a new VRD pattern down the road. We shall see….
Well, that’s it for me today. I need to figure out which project I’ll be completing for next week’s Week 6 (and the last week) of our 6 Quilts in 6 Weeks Challenge. And then, I’m going to play in my new textile collection.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
So now we’ve talked about the 3 top ways to design quilts, let’s play with Nine Patches using EQ8, of course!
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.
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?
It’s still a Nine Patch, only it’s elongated. Let’s see what this block looks like in a quilt.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Let’s try our block in a quilt setting now.
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.
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.
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.
It’s OFFICIAL! Throw the confetti! Toot your party horns! YEAH!
Pat’s NEW fabric collection for Riley Blake Designs, BEDAZZLED!, is finally here and we are all SEW excited!
To celebrate Pat’s new fabric collection, I’m sharing another great tutorial with you this week – 2M Junior.
Next week, we’ll dive right back into the Free Motion Quilting Series, I promise.
VRD 2M Junior Quilt Tutorial
2M Junior is the little brother of 2M. Junior has the same block, only it’s a bit smaller so the quilt finishes as a throw quilt instead of a big bed-sized quilt like big brother 2M. It also uses a different block configuration, which gives it its own personality.
For the pattern cover quilt, I actually used samples of Bedazzled! and, boy, does it sparkle. And I mean that both figuratively and literally – don’t forget that Bedazzled! features glitter and glam. OHHHHH, SHINY!
I’m happy to say we have some kits made up for 2M Junior featuring Bedazzled! You can get your Bedazzled! 2M Junior kitHERE.
OH! I can’t forget big brother 2M, can I?
You may already know the story, but let me share it again. I designed 2M for my youngest niece, Morgan, as her high school graduation quilt. She asked for something modern. Yes, she loved it (and still does).
If you enjoyed the Baby Zip Tease tutorial last week also featuring Pat’s Bedazzled! collection, we now have kits for it, too. You can get your Baby Zip Tease kit HERE.
All right, back to our previously scheduled programming….2M Junior. Tehehe….
First thing we always do is gather up our fabrics for the project. The 2 teal batiks are from Riley Blake’s Expressions basics. And the fat quarters are, of course, from Pat’s Bedazzled! collection. Simply scrumptious, aren’t they???
Once I’ve gathered up my fabrics, I like to cut all the pieces out for the quilt before I begin sewing. Do you do that or do you cut your pieces as you go?
Okay, now we’re ready to sew!
Let’s add a background rectangle to the left side of a block center.
Next we need to sew a background rectangle to the top of the unit.
Then we’re going to sew accent strips to the sides and then to the top and bottom of the unit.
Now we are going to sew a background rectangle to the smaller block center rectangle and sew it to the bottom of the unit.
The next step is to sew another background rectangle to the longer block center rectangle and then sew it to the right side of the block. Our first block is done!
Easy Piezy, right? Now repeat to make the rest of the quilt blocks.
We’re going to lay out the blocks and move them around until we’re happy with how things look.
Warning – sometimes this step takes longer than actually making the quilt top (especially if it’s a VRD Rose Card pattern – they’re fast and fun, you know!). Yikes!
Okay, I like how the fabrics are distributed around the quilt now, so I’m going with this arrangement. Don’t you just love how the squares and boxes tumble down the quilt?
Hurry! Let’s sew the blocks together and then sew the rows together before any furry helpers make an appearance and rearrange the blocks when I blink.
And – guess what????? No borders on this one! Yippee!
It is my humble opinion that not all quilts need borders. What are your thoughts on borders?
Here’s another photo of the 2M Junior quilt top. Yummy, yummy, yummy!
Now the top is finished, it’s time to layer it with batting and backing (or fleece for a cozy back). Quilt it. And please, don’t forget your quilt label! DONE!
Need a little help with batting, backing, and layering everything together? VRD to the rescue! Check out this post from our Basic Quilting Skills for Beginners series, Basic Quilting Skills for Beginners: Batting, Backing, and Preparing a Quilt for Quilting. You can find all the lessons in the Beginner series over to the right of the blog, under the Blog Topics Heading or down further as a heading with the lessons listed below.
Once everything is layered together, then it’s time to quilt! Yay! And we are right in the middle of a new series for 2025 — Free Motion Quilting. Lucky You!
We interrupted the series for a couple weeks to celebrate Pat’s new collection with a few new tutorials, but next week, we’ll be moving on to Lesson 3 in the FMQ series.
If you missed the first couple FMQ lessons, you can find them below:
You can also find the different series we’ve done over on the right side of the blog, farther down, each under its own heading. Have fun checking them out!
Bedazzled! Update
Since last week’s post, we’ve added some more fun Bedazzled stuff to the shop (physical and online). Here’s the 411 –
And here’s the San Julian Rose Card pattern. Please note that the pattern comes in each kit, so you don’t need to order it separately. I’m adding the links below, though, in case someone needs it by itself.
Whew! That was a lot today, wasn’t it? Thanks for celebrating Pat’s new fabric collection, Bedazzled!, with us here on the blog. I can’t wait to see your new Bedazzled! quilts on the VRD Facebook page soon.
Well, that’s it for me today. Remember, next week we’re jumping back into our Free Motion Quilting series.
Whew! What a crazy whirlwind the last few days here at Quilt Market have been! As I sit down to write this, Market is over and Festival is just beginning and I thought I’d share a little bit about my Market experience with you. So here goes.
Time to Travel
While Molly and Heidi were flying in from California and I was on my way from Pennsylvania last Thursday, Pat was already here in Houston. Pat spent the day hauling stuff from the van to the booth and running here and there to pick up shipments. Molly and Heidi’s plane was diverted which made them arrive a few hours late and my plane was early, so the three of us actually met at the airport.
Check out these really cool clouds I saw from the plane. I’ve never seen clouds quite like this before with strange finger-like projections on the top of the clouds. You might need to zoom in on the photos to see the weirdness.
DID YOU KNOW?????? Snack Mats are a great accessory for plane travel — they are just the right size for the seat trays. What a great way to brighten up your flight (and keep things clean) as you enjoy the onboard snack and beverage. I discovered this quite by accident when I was finishing a bit of binding and laid my mat down on the table. Huh! Happy accident! You can find ALL of our VRD Snack Mats so far to date HERE.
Up to this point, everything had seemed so easy for me – too easy, I guess – as there ended up being an issue with Molly’s rental car so the three of us went to 2 different rental companies until we were finally on our way to the house Pat had rented. We dropped our stuff off at the house and headed for Wal Mart to grab what we needed. Wouldn’t you know it, but the closest Wal Mart wasn’t even a real Superstore because it lacked sections such as dairy and produce, so we ended up having to go to Randal’s to pick up our food items. Yikes!
We finally made it back to the house so we could settle in. Sheesh, I was totally worn out! Travel days can be like like that, can’t they?
Behind the Scenes at Marketand SEW Much More!
We headed to the Conference Center the next morning on Friday to get the booth set up for Quilt Market. This is definitely no easy task, let me tell you! First, you have to get everything inside so you can set up your booth. Luckily Pat had spent Thursday doing just that so we didn’t have to move much inside. Secondly, you have to navigate around all the other vendors’ stuff sitting in the aisles as they are also setting up their booths. Let me show you some photos of set up. Don’t forget the loaders and equipment, the trolleys and carts….
See what I mean??? These photos are looking up and down the aisle the VRD booth is located in.
And here’s our VRD booth in the beginning stages. We had a Schoolhouse session at 1:55 PM, so we couldn’t do much with the quilts until afterwards. Schoolhouse sessions are basically mini break out lectures where vendors can share their current and upcoming products and programs.
I was thrilled that our quilting partners, Hoffman, were in the booth right beside us. It was great seeing my Hoffman pal, Sandy, again. Oops, I never did take any photos of their booth. Mea culpa…..
So, halfway through set-up, we took our cart of quilts (which you see above in the third photo) and headed up to the classroom assigned to us for our session.
WOWZER!
There ended up being well over 100 people in attendance to see what was new with Villa Rosa! And to see all the quilts, too! Amazingly, we showed every single one we brought upstairs. It was crowded and standing room only — just the way we like it. YAY!
Look at all those happy people!
Then it was straight back to the booth to really get it set up. Molly and Heidi worked on hanging quilts. Pat and I kept working on Rose Cards. It was hustle time!
Finally, we were ready for the onslaught of eager shop owners on Saturday! It never fails to amaze and delight me when a disorganized space suddenly turns into a beautiful booth. Big SHOUT OUT to Molly and Heidi — they hung all the quilts, moved tables, helped Pat figure out the layout….
Me, I just try to stay out of the way and look pretty. LOL!
Quilt Market is On!
Saturday went incredibly fast as we were pretty much swamped all day. It took all 4 of us to man the booth. I just LOVE chatting with everyone and hearing their wonderful VRD stories and experiences. I didn’t get to grab any photos for you on Saturday, sorry.
Sunday was also pretty steady, but not the mobs like on Saturday. Molly and Heidi had some meetings at fabric companies to order new fabrics just for you! You’ll have to stay tuned to see what new fabrics are coming into the shop over the next year.
Here are some great photos Molly and Heidi wanted to share with you:
By the way, Molly promises to drop into the blog soon – she’s working on some new posts just for you. 🙂
Monday was my play day! Woohoo! When I wasn’t needed in the booth, I headed right down to the first aisle and enjoyed some great eye candy as I meandered my way through the aisles. I was such a slowpoke, though, because I kept stopping and chatting, but hey, that’s part of a show, isn’t it? After all the Markets I’ve been to now, I’ve developed lots of show friendships over the years, so it’s great to check in with folks and catch up.
Of course, I also love to meet new people, too.
I even managed to get some photos with a few folks myself. Cool!
With Minki Kim, a Riley Blake designerWith Kaffe Fassett and LizaWith Brandon Mably
I stopped by and met some other great designers too. Sandy Gervais has been one of my all-time favorite fabric designers for a very long time, so it was great to meet her.
Monday was such a relaxed day, I didn’t feel like I had to hurry to see everything all at once. Surprisingly, I did actually get to see everything. Yay!
This is a wonderful felt board set – it’s a felt panel! – by Jennifer for her Created With Love fabric collection coming to shops in May 2025. There will even be a felt panel sew along in May, so watch for it!
I absolutely adore it!
When I was a Children’s Librarian at my local public library a few years ago, I led a Tuesday Toddler Time and we always did some kind of felt board activity. Oh, how the kiddos would have loved this set. It does come with a cute little book for storage and play, but you could use them on a large flannel board, too. If you have little ones in your life, you might want to watch when this collection comes out and grab the felt panel because it probably won’t last long.
Schiffer Publishing booth
I wouldn’t be a very good book nerd if I didn’t show at least one photo with books, would I? There were 3 different publishers present this year. That was really great to see because since the Pandemic, book and magazine publishers have been slow to return to Market. Still no magazine publishers, though. Maybe next year.
Schiffer Publishing (the photo above) has always been my go-to publisher for amazing historical quilt books with an abundance of gorgeous photos. It was so nice to see my Schiffer pal, Joe, and catch up with him. I haven’t seen him at a show since before the Pandemic so it was great to see him.
C&T Publishing was there this year, too. In addition to being one of our 2024 Blog Hop participants and sponsors, they were my publisher for my book, I Love Precut Quilts!
Fox Chapel was there, too. They were also one of our awesome 2024 Blog Hop sponsors.
Next up is Quilt Festival! If you’re planning to attend, please please please come see us and introduce yourself — we would love to see you. You can find us at booth 721. I promise, we’ll have some great shopping for you – kits, patterns, fabric, and super fun fat quarter bundles! Wait until you see our amazing dump table.
See you there!
Well, looks like that’s it for me this week! Stay tuned for next week’s post all about Quilt Festival!
As I write this post, I am still in Colton’s Point, Maryland with 2 of my (I want to say oldest here, but I don’t mean ages, I mean the number of years we’ve known each other) quilty pals, Leslie and Cathey.
I must confess that I am having a wonderful time here! Colton’s Point is a very special hidden treasure right on the Potomac River, it’s about 1.5 hours from Washington D.C. and a couple hours from Baltimore. Of course, we’re not here during any festivals or events, so it’s been quiet and peaceful — 2 things I’ve been craving for quite a while now. Too bad Leslie and I are only visiting Cathey and her husband, Bryon for 4 days — 4 days is barely enough time to unzip my suitcase, let alone unwind completely. Then again, not sure I could ever truly unwind completely, even if I tried — I don’t think it’s in my nature. LOL!
It was about a 7 hour drive to get to Colton’s Point from northwestern PA. Of course, Leslie and I do not live in the same area anymore, so we met about halfway in between. My sister, Tracy, kindly drove me to meet Leslie and then we were on our way! I rode shotgun and Leslie drove. I totally could not believe her car was getting 48.3 miles per gallon on average! Wowzer!
Here is Cathey and Bryon’s adorable cottage (it’s bigger than it looks as it is quite deep). It has a wonderful beachy vibe and is very welcoming.
One of the coolest things about their home is that mere steps away from their cottage is Cathey’s lovely quilt studio. This is, of course, where we definitely will be spending A LOT of our time together on our little “quilt retreat.”
Don’t you just love her barn quilt out front??? Cathey brought it all the way from PA when they moved here.
It didn’t take the 3 of us long to settle back into sewing together, although it’s been simply ages since our last quilt retreat experience. We certainly had a lot of catching up to do!
I know I packed too many projects to bring with me, but I wanted to be prepared. And I really wanted to do some free motion quilting — I have way too many unfinished tops, or flimsies, right now — so I brought along 3 table runners and my Whirly Bird top from last week’s summer tutorial to machine quilt. If you missed the Whirly Bird tutorial, you can find it HERE. I also brought a challenge project for the 3 of us — I think I’ll talk more about this project in next week’s post, though — I also brought several quilt kits in case I had time to do any cutting and piecing.
Luckily, Cathey has the same model of machine as I do — a Janome 8900 — so quilting on her machine felt a lot like quilting on my machine, although no 2 machines ever feel quite the same. In fact, Cathey is the person who got me into Janome machines, when she bought her first Janome 6260, it was such a nice machine, I had to get one too. Later she upgraded to a 8900, and so did I.
Here I am sitting on Cathey’s studio front porch, just chilling for a few minutes.
Here is Cathey, working on cutting out some projects.
Here is Leslie working on a second version of a quilt she designed several years ago.
Here is the view from where I am sitting in front of Cathey’s 8900 while I machine quilting Whirly Bird.
I think I’ve mentioned before that Cathey is a quilter/designer and is the owner of Cathey Marie Designs.
And after a long hiatus from quilting when life happened, Leslie is getting back into quilting once again.
And you all know little ol’ me. LOL!
Cathey, Leslie, and I have all designed quilts for magazines, too.
We’ve been trying to figure out when we first met and Leslie thinks it was 2007. Both Leslie and Cathey were relatively new quilters when we met on a bus trip to Chautauqua Institution in New York for Quilting Around Chautauqua. Cathey and I had met in the summer when I was seated behind her on the bus for our local Shop Hop. It was both our first Shop Hop. Those meetings led to many Shop Hops and quilting road trips, along with some quilting retreats (and staying in a cottage at Chautauqua for Quilting Around Chautauqua with our quilty pal, Mary Lee — HEY MARY LEE!) sprinkled in for good measure. But as things happen, life got in the ways and over time we didn’t spend as much time together. How wonderful to spend 4 days together quilting, sewing, catching up, and eating (yep, who can forget eating??).
The Potomac River….and Quilts!
We walked down to the river just to take it in, but we didn’t have a lot of time to soak it all in, as thunder started to rumble in the distance and before we arrived back at the cottage, it had started to rain.
What really amazed me was how wide the Potomac is right here at Colton’s Point! I could barely see the land on the other side of the river (which just so happened to be Virginia). I tried to find out how wide the Potomac was at Colton’s Point but could only find that the widest section was around 11 miles across and that was farther down towards Chesapeake Bay.
Do you see the little island there on the right beyond the pier? That is St. Clements Island, which is where the first settlers to Maryland landed in the 1600’s. Of course, back then the island was something like 10 times larger!
You can find the St. Clement’s Island Museum Campus down near the river. And on the museum grounds is a lovely Little Red Schoolhouse, built in 1820. We were able to go right into the schoolhouse, which is used for school field trips and events. It was like stepping back in time to Little House on the Prairie……
As a former children’s librarian, I was thrilled to see a Little Free Library right outside the Little Red Schoolhouse!
The next day, Bryon kindly shepherded Leslie and I back to the river, this time out on a pier, to witness the sunset. I was a little apprehensive walking out on the boardwalk to the pier, but I really wanted to have a front row seat for the sunset. Mother Nature did not disappoint! Not at all! My, what a sight! We also went to see the sunset again Wednesday night.
Tuesday night’s sunset.
Wednesday night’s sunset.
And on Wednesday afternoon, I wandered back down to the pier for more photos, taking the 2 runners I quilted, Whirly Bird, and the Discovery top I had just completed (stay tuned for a Discovery tutorial next week).
Here is my Whirly Bird quilt from last week’s tutorial! I haven’t added the binding yet, but it still looks beautiful. Being down at the river was really peaceful — I felt like I was the only person in the world for a little while, which really was priceless. I felt like I could really breathe here.
Get your own print Whirly Bird HERE or digital Whirly Bird HERE.
Here are 2 of the 3 table runners I brought with me to machine quilt. The one on the right is Molly’s Amen runner and the runner on the left is a variation of Amen.
You can get your own print Amen HERE or digital Amen HERE.
And here is my Discovery quilt top. I did a couple photos down at the river, but I think the autumn colors looked better on the picket fence in front of Cathey’s cottage.
Get your print discovery HERE or your digital Discovery HERE.
Sadly, Leslie and I are heading home in the morning, but we will be back. Soon.
Just one more photo…………
Well, that’s it for me this week! Stop back next week for a final Summer Tutorial.
I hope your summer is still going strong and you are getting to do the things on your summer bucket list.
This has been my busiest summer since before the Pandemic, that’s for sure. I’ve been doing things I haven’t done for years — gardening, the adult summer reading program at my local library (I even won a nice prize at the program potluck last week!), I’ve been to Presque Isle Park (Lake Erie) twice so far, made multiple trips to the big farmer’s market in Erie (PA), and even visited a relatively new local museum I’ve never been to before. Luckily, I’ve been making quilt tops for our Summer Tutorial series so I’ve even gotten in some fun sewing. Yay!
The only issue with my busy crazy summer is that I’ve been neglecting a lot of things at home and in my studio space. So I guess I’ll have a lot to catch up on this fall. Sigh………..
Road Trip
Artwork by moi
This Sunday, I’m even going on a summer road trip with my friend, Leslie — Hi Leslie! — to Maryland to visit our friend, Cathey — Hey Cathey!
Looks like we’re going to have a good old-fashioned quiltathon/quilt retreat like we used to do years ago at Chautauqua Institution (Chautauqua NY) during Quilting around Chautauqua every September (sadly, the amazing quilt weekend is no more….). The three of us along with our other quilty pal, Mary Lee — Hey Mary Lee! — would rent a cottage and start our quilt weekend on a Wednesday so we could have a quilt retreat as well as enjoy the show on Saturday and Sunday. Ahhhhh, those were the days.
I can’t wait to catch up with these gals because we’ve all kind of gone in different directions since Chautauqua.
I’ll tell you all about my adventures in next week’s post, so stay tuned until then.
Now let’s continue our Summer Tutorial series with an oldy, but a goodie — my pattern, Whirly Bird.
VRD Whirly Bird Quilt Tutorial
Today we’re going to have a little fun with Whirly Bird. Have you made this quilt yet? If so, please please please share it on our VRD Facebook page ’cause I’d really like to see them!
If not, it’s fun and fast (of course) and has a lot of room for creativity.
Get your print Whirly Bird HERE or your digital Whirly Bird HERE.
When I designed Whirly Bird, I really wanted to do a gradation quilt featuring black, grey, and white. It turned out to be a pretty cool quilt with a very modern feel, which was what I was going after.
Let’s change things up today by swapping the lights and darks! I think you’ll be really surprised when you see the finished top.
So let’s get this party started, shall we?
For today’s Whirly Bird, I am using the Touch of Grey collection by our quilting partner, Hoffman Fabrics. Yep, I’m sticking with a neutral theme for this version, but that’s really where the similarities end.
The charcoal fabric at the bottom of the photo will be my background fabric and the 5 light fabrics in the center at the top will be the gradation strips in the quilt. The border is on the left and the binding is on the right.
The first thing we’re gong to do is cut the fabrics according to the pattern, but swapping out the dark charcoal for the background (or light) fabric and the light greys for the graduated grey strips.
While I cut, I am organizing my pieces on a flannel board so that I have the correct background piece paired with the correct light grey strip. Want to make your own flannel board? You can find the tutorial HERE.
By arranging my pieces on my flannel board in order, I can simply take the board right to my sewing machine and start sewing immediately.
So let’s do that!
Let’s sew the charcoal background pieces to the corresponding light grey strips. This step went really fast because I used chain piecing for each pair for each block, stacked them back on my board, and then moved onto the next pair.
Moving right along, we’re going to head to the ironing board. I pressed my seams to the dark, but this doesn’t work perfectly all the time. So press your seams in a way that makes sense to you.
A note about pressing — I don’t usually give directions for pressing seams in tutorials and even on my patterns because every quilter has their own way of doing things. For me, I usually make those decisions on the fly as I sew. I usually do press to the dark, but sometimes I find that when sewing the the pieces of a block together, I have to flip my seams to the other side.
Wanna hear a joke — an old favorite of mine?????
What has a light side, a dark side, and holds the whole universe together???
Keep reading to find the answer. Tehehe!
After I pressed each strip pair, I put them back on my flannel board to keep things neat and tidy.
And….back to the sewing machine!
Next we are going to sew the pieced strips together into a block. One word of caution about having your pieces laid out on your flannel board — make sure you have them laid out in the right order or else your blocks won’t turn out the way you want them to. As a lefty, I sometimes have to double and triple check block or even quilt layouts before I sew the pieces together because it’s just too dang easy for me to flip things the wrong way.
I used chain piecing to sew the blocks together. This process went super fast as I made all the blocks at one time, one step at a time, without stopping to press in between.
Now, back to the ironing board to give these blocks a good press. I like to press the seams from the back first. Then I repress the block from the front, making sure everything is nice and flat.
Remember, we PRESS in quilting, we do not IRON. Need a little refresher on pressing vs. ironing? Check out a blog post about pressing techniques from our 2022 Quilting Basics series HERE.
Woohoo! The blocks are done and pressed — let’s arrange them on my design wall!
This is the same arrangement of blocks as in the original Whirly Bird quilt on the front of the pattern. Wow! What a difference when you swap the lights and darks out in this design! What do you think???
This is just one of many arrangements. Here are some other possibilities to give you food for thought when you make your own version of Whirly Bird.
I bet you could even come up with 1 or 2 more!
I decided to go with the original arrangement, so now let’s sew the blocks into rows and then sew the rows together.
LOVE LOVE LOVE IT! Especially the repeating little pop of grey print in the middle of the light grey tonal strips — yep, I planned that on purpose for added interest. 🙂 I really like how those center print strips flip up, down, and sideways in the blocks — it really does add a bit of a secondary design and helps move your eyes around the quilt.
Next up, we are going to add the border, although this quilt doesn’t have to have one — it would finish beautifully with a dark binding to frame the blocks. But, we’re adding a border.
Sew the sides on first and then add the top and bottom. For more added interest, I added dark fabric squares in the 4 outer corners. This is a little bit different than the original pattern, so let me tell you how I did it:
As this quilt is a square, I cut 4 borders the same length as my quilt top through the center and the same width as the pattern calls for as well as 4 squares. I sewed border strips to the sides of the quilt center. Next I sewed dark squares to both ends of the remaining 2 borders and then sewed them to the top and bottom of the quilt center. Easy piezy!
If you don’t want corner squares, though, simply cut and sew the borders like you normally would.
Here it is — my completed Whirly Bird quilt top. I really like how the dark corner squares connect to the dark block sections in all 4 corners.
What are your thoughts?
I’m planning to take this quilt with me to Cathey’s — I hope to get some machine quilting done. Fingers crossed……………
DUCT TAPE!!!
See you back here from Maryland next Thursday and I’ll tell you all about my trip. I hope Cathey’s hubby, Bryon, is doing all the cooking while we quilt, gab, laugh, and eat chocolate.
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:
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???
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:
You must complete a quilt top before we meet that month
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 Quilthere. 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.
Let me rephrase that — Happy Blog Hop Kickoff Day to you!
Hi there! I’m Tricia, your Villa Rosa host for the Blog Hop. All of us at Villa Rosa Designs are tickled pink (and all the colors of the rainbow) that you are here to come along on a fun quilting adventure — our second Blog Hop here at Villa Rosa Designs. We’re calling it the Fast & MORE Fun Blog Hop.
You all know the saying — “Go big or go home?” We’re going B – I – G this year just for you! More Bloggers! More Fun! More Quilts! More Inspiration! More Prizes!
We have a super talented group of bloggers ready to share some awesome quilts made with Villa Rosa Designs (VRD) Rose Card patterns.
In fact, we’ve put together a special collection of 5 patterns just for this Blog Hop!
Here are the 5 patterns in the 2024 Fast & Fun Blog Hop Collection:
Lucky you! You can purchase a set of these 5 patterns HERE. Or visit our website HERE for even more great Rose Card patterns (over 600 of them).
Or you might just win a set. READ ON to find out how!
Villa Rosa Designs is the brainchild of owner and Rose Queen, Pat Fryer. Pat wanted to create Fast & Fun, affordable, and high quality patterns for quilters featuring precuts like 1/2 yards, fat quarters, 10″ squares, 5″ squares, 2 1/2″ strips, fat eighths, and fat sixths as well as other fabrics like panels and novelties.
Since its launch in 2010, VRD has become much more than a handful of easy-to-make quilt patterns. Rose Cards, Villa Rosa’s signature postcard-sized patterns, combine great design with simple packaging and an attractive price, making Rose Cards one of the best selling pattern brands on the market today! And since 2010, Villa Rosa Designs has grown to include a collection of very talented designers, each with their own unique style.
Now that you know a little bit about Villa Rosa Designs, let me tell you about the VRD Fast & More Fun Blog Hop!
What the Heck is a Blog Hop???
Good question and an easy one to explain. Most of you probably already know what a shop hop is (and may have participated in one before), where you travel to each shop participating in the event. There’s usually giveaways and a special pattern to collect at each shop.
A blog hop is very similar to a shop hop — instead of going from shop to shop, though, you go from blog to blog. You will usually find some kind of theme to a blog hop with opportunities to win prizes. And you can even hop from blog to blog in your jammies from the comfort of your own home. Yippee! Count me in!
Let’s HOP!
We’ve teamed up with the most awesome group of bloggers! They have accepted the Blog Hop challenge to create at least 1 of the 5 Blog Hop Rose Card patterns above. To see which blogger has created which pattern, you’ll have to visit EACH blogger during the hop which runs from today, March 14th through next Thursday, March 21st.
You will have the opportunity to win lots of great prizes during the blog hop! All you have to do is hop from blog to blog every day from March 14th through March 21st following the Blog Hop Schedule, above, to see which quilt each blogger made and to find out how to register for prizes on each blog.
Registration for prizes will close on Sunday, March 24th.
Before I jump into all the cool prizes you might win, I want to take a moment to thank all of our incredible sponsors, who donated all kinds of quilting goodies for you to win. Thank you Sponsors! Without you, this Blog Hop wouldn’t be possible.
It is free to participate in the Hop and there is no purchase necessary. Everyone Everywhere is invited to Hop along with us this week and register to win prizes.
There are many opportunities for you to win prizes during the blog hop:
Individual bloggers may be hosting giveaways on their blogs for you to win. Please visit individual blogs to find out about their giveaways and how to register.
Villa Rosa Designs is giving away a 2024 Blog Hop Rose Card pattern collection on each participating blog. International winners will win a digital set of patterns.
Sponsor prizes have been donated by our lovely Sponsors, above, and even from some of the bloggers, too! These prizes are divided into 2 different categories —
Grand Prizes (each blogger will select 3 entries to go into the Grand Prize drawings):
Kaffe Fasset Precut Collection
$100 digital Gift Certificate to Hancock’s of Paducah
A BIG BOX of mystery quilty goodies
An Electric Quilt 8 download — the winner for this prize will be selected on the EQ blog, so you will need to register there for this prize
Individual Prizes (each blogger will select 3 winners on their blog) which may be books, patterns, fat quarter bundles, 5″ squares, 2 1/2″ strips, 10″ squares, or notions — it will be a fun surprise, I promise!
WOW! That’s A LOT of prizes if you do the math!
Here are some photos of prizes to get you motivated! LOL!
Left: A Box filled with Individual Sponsor Prizes Center: The Kaffe Fasset Precut Collection Grand Prize Right: The Mystery Box of Goodies Grand Prize (most likely we’ll be adding more items before the Hop is over)
Sooooo, how do you win?
Hop from blog to blog using the schedule and links above from today, Thursday March 14th through Thursday March 21st and register for prizes at each blog you visit. The more participating blogs you visit and register at, the more chances you have to win prizes! It’s really that easy, I promise.
Winners will be selected randomly. Each blogger will select 3 names to go into the Grand Prize drawings and then 3 winners will be selected randomly to win from the bloggers’ entries. Each blogger will also randomly select 3 winners for the Sponsored Individual Prizes and 1 winner for a set of the Blog Hop patterns.
Prize registration closes Sunday, March 23 2024.
Winners will be announced just as soon as all winners have been notified. Prizes will be shipped as soon as possible. Please be patient if you are a prize winner, this process can take a little time.
Villa Rosa Designs Thursday March 14th Giveaway
Thank you for reading all the way through this post! As a reward, you can register to win QUILTS!
Left: Eden Rose 41×48 Center: Gingersnap 45×61 Right: Hey Day 60×80
These 3 quilts are made from Villa Rosa patterns and are completely finished — machine quilted and bound — and ready for you to enjoy. Awesome Applesauce!!!
Here’s how to win one of these quilts:
You have up to 3 chances to win the quilts listed above on this blog. Please do a separate comment for each of the following 3 opportunities — if you answer all of them in one comment, then it only counts as one comment. So sorry if this was not clear.
1. Leave a comment on this post and tell us what your favorite Rose Card pattern is (or one you would like to make if you’re new to VRD).
2. Become a blog follower/subscriber and leave a comment on this post telling us that you are a blog follower/subscriber (if you already subscribe — thank you — just leave a comment and let us know).
3. Join our VRD Facebook group and leave a comment on this post telling us you joined our FB group (if you are already a member of our FB group — thank you — just leave a comment and let us know).
In addition to the 3 quilts above, we will be giving away a set of the Fast & More Fun Rose Card Patterns and 3 commenters will be added to the Grand Prize drawings.
Please note that to be registered to win any prizes on this blog, you first must leave a comment. To leave a comment, you will need to click on the comments link just under the blog title at the top of the blog OR you can find a comments link along the side of the blog post towards the bottom right. After you click the “comments” link, you need to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the comments in order to find the space to leave your own comment. Be patient — there may be a lot of comments to go through until you get to the bottom.Thank you.
Ready! Set! GO!
Don’t forget — registration for prizes closes Sunday, March 23rd.
PLEASE MAKE SURE TO INCLUDE AN EMAIL ADDRESSSO WE CAN CONTACT YOU IF YOU ARE A WINNER!
Well, Quilty Friends, I thank you for reading the whole way to the end.
Good luck to each of you and please enjoy the Blog Hop! Don’t forget to stop back each day of the Hop to follow the links to bloggers for that day.
Villa Rosa Quilts 