Geekly Chic Around the World

I recently had an hour of free time and spent it trolling through Instagram hashtags looking for projects made with my Riley Blake Designs Geekly Chic prints. Here are some fun things I found!

Records Pillow and All-Stars Pillow made by Olivia of Hermit Crab Stitchery in Toronto.

Brookfield Bag made by Crystal using a pattern by Sara of Sew Sweetness.

Camera Quilt made by Connie from Sew Dayton in Dayton, Ohio.

Ellie Travel Case made by Nancy using a pattern by Heidi Staples.

Make It Snappy dress made by Ashley.

Mix Tapes dress made by Annika of Three Little Peas.

Records Corset Top made by Tamara.

Records Diaper Cover made by Emily of June Buggs Hatchlings.

Records & Tapes Dress made by Jane of Janey Babe Handmade.

It's Calendar Time!

Yes, my friends, if you haven't started already, it is time to start thinking about holiday gifts and the new year! And that means tea towel calendars are all the rage on Spoonflower. The tea towel calendar design contest is my favorite of the year, mostly because I get to return to my graphic design roots. Here is my entry this year, inspired by board games. Start at January, advance through each month, and the first one to make it through December wins! You can vote for all your favorite designs here.

Plan, Print, Procrastinate

It took me six months of planning and procrastinating, but I finally finished my Instagram cheater quilt SpoonChallenge project! The challenge, created by Becka Rahn, was to design a cheater quilt using photos from my Instagram feed that could be printed onto a yard of fabric.

I decided to use photos from our family trips to Hawaii, and arrange them into an ombre-colored, pixelated banana leaf design. For the backing, I used my Umi Numbers Hawaiian Cheater Quilt fabric. Both were printed on Kona Cotton from Spoonflower, and then for the binding, I found a matching green solid Kona at the fabric store.

This was my first attempt at quilting! While stitching around the edges of each photo was a bit tedious (lots of stopping and starting and turning and backstitching), I loved doing the concentric stitches around the photos to the edge (about every 3/4"). I am really happy with the way the straight lines contrast with the organic lines of the quilt backing. I sort of cheated on the binding, top-stitching with the machine instead of slip stitching by hand (I have no patience), but I think it turned out great!

Soda Nation - 59 Bottlecaps of the U.S. National Parks

This week's Spoonflower contest theme is 'National Parks'. I have always wanted to do a print using bottlecaps, so I took this opportunity to make up a whole bunch of 'fantasy' soda pop brands and flavors--59 to be exact! One for each of the national parks in the U.S. Here is how the design looks on a fat quarter of cotton fabric (21" x 18").

And here are closeups of the caps. I had a great time researching each park to come up with appropriate soda names and flavors, and enjoyed going back to my graphic design roots! If you like the design, your vote would make me 'bubbly'!