Art designed to Inspire

Riley Blake Designs 2015 Spring Quilt Market Blog Tour!

GIVEAWAY ALERT! Be sure to read to the end of this post to find out how you can win a Fat Quarter bundle of our new fabric collection: Little Flyers from Riley Blake Designs! And check out the FREE pdf pattern to download for our Little Flyers Hoop Art.

Today is the day! Thanks for stopping by! I'm thrilled to be a featured stop on the Riley Blake Designs Spring Quilt Market Blog Tour.  Have you been following along? I have and it's been great seeing my fellow designers' blogs previewing their beautiful new collections and fun projects. 

Previous Blog Stop: Samantha Walker

Next Blog Stop: Riley Blake Designs

Little Flyers is our second collection with Riley Blake Designs. It features cute and colorful critters soaring in the air aboard whimsical flying machines. I was inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's sketches and Rowland Emett's kinetic sculptures when I was creating this collection but my designs are not nearly as complex (more info and pics about the inspiration are directly under this post).

Jina and Cindy at RBD requested a boy theme collection so I used some of my critters from my stamp designs (Hampton Art) and combined them with new ideas to create Little Flyers. The result is 6 different patterns in 3 cotton colorways. You can see the complete collection at Riley Blake Designs. It will be shipping in June so I hope you'll look for it at your local quilt shop.

I wasn't able to go to Spring Quilt Market earlier this month, but Little Flyers was well represented at the Riley Blake Designs booth. Thank you to Julia for sending me pictures of the booth and projects made by the talented sewists at Riley Blake Designs. I get the biggest kick out of seeing what others make with our designs. Just look at all the fun projects!!

Now let's have a closer look at some of those fun projects!

Wouldn't these pillows look great on top of the quilted bed cover below? Free pattern for the quilt on the Riley Blake Designs website.

Aren't these pajamas the cutest? This pattern is called: the Pajamas Party PJs by Fishsticks Designs

And I love this piece of wall art! I wouldn't have thought about quilting a hot air balloon. This piece inspired my Hoop Art project below.

Even though I'm just a beginner sewist, I wanted to make something with my samples of Little Flyers. I loved the hot air balloon wall art above, so I thought I might be able to do something like it on a much simpler and smaller scale. Hoop art is trending now and I had an embroidery hoop and thread already, so I decided to give it a try. I first came up with the design on my computer (using my fabric designs), then printed the words onto the fabric with my HP laser printer. After a couple of hours of cutting, sewing and hand worked embroidery, it was finished. It's not perfect - I had some puckering issues that I'll fix for next time, but overall not bad. I created a pattern that you can try if you'd like. Click here to download the FREE pdf file: Download Little Flyers Hoop Art

Here’s the complete line-up of talented designers on the blog tour - Go and check them all out - so much amazing inspiration!!

5/15 - Where Women Cook5/18 - Becky Marie Designs8/18 - Pattern Anthology5/19 - Carina Gardner5/21 - Lori Holt5/21 - Tasha Noel5/22 - Lori Whitlock5/22 - Cinderberry Stitches5/23 - Eleanor Dugan5/26 - Simple Simon5/26 - The Quilted Fish5/28 - Melly & Me5/28 - Elea Lutz5/29 - Zoe Pearn5/29 - Doohikey Designs5/30 -Samantha Walker
5/30 – Kelly PanacciRiley Blake Designs

If you made it to the bottom of this blog post you deserve a chance at a Give Away. Write a comment below for a chance to win a Fat Quarter bundle of Little Flyers. To triple your chances go to our Facebook page and Instagram where we're having more GIVEAWAYS. The winners will be announced at the end of the Riley Blake Designs Spring 2015 Quilt Market Blog Tour - June 2nd.

You can follow updates on our website and our social media pages: Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram and Twitter. Thanks for visiting our blog!

Leonardo da Vinci & Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

What do the famous artist da Vinci and the 60s movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang have in common? They are both part of what inspired my latest fabric collection LITTLE FLYERS from Riley Blake Designs.

Even though Leonardo da Vinci is most famous for his paintings, his sketches of flying machines and other contraptions prove he was an inventor ahead of his time.

Rowland Emett was a British cartoonist and an eccentric who brought his sketches to life in kinetic sculptures. They caught the eye of the producers of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and he was hired to design the movie props and famous flying car. I first saw Rowland Emett's work at an exhibition called "Dream Machines" at the Ontario Science Centre back in the 70s. The Science Centre now has the largest collection of Emett's kinetic sculptures and they are displayed for the Holiday Season every year. The video posted here shows how I first saw these delightful flying whimsies.

 

Isn't the imagination a wonderful thing?! And isn't it cool that the work of these artists continues to inspire others? I hope you're inspired too!

Here's a little peek at my version of flying machines with some cute critters at the wheel that eventually became LITTLE FLYERS for Riley Blake Designs. The fabric collection ships in June so don't forget to ask for it at your local quilt store. We'll be sharing projects and a tutorial in our next post.

 

Little Flyers fabric samples are here!

I'm so excited that fabric samples arrived and now it's time to sew! I'll be participating in the Riley Blake Designs Spring Quilt Market Blog Tour so I'm planning a cute project for little boys. Here's a sneak peek at the cute fabrics. This is a bundle pack of 1 yard pieces in the BLUE colorway (it comes in yellow and gray too). Stay tuned for more pics introducing Little Flyers - our 2nd fabric collection with Riley Blake Designs.