Ruby Star Society's Reading Nook Inspiration

By Remy Nixon, April 9, 2023

Ruby Star Society's spring collections are coming! And arriving when they said they would for the first time in a LONG time! (You got this Supply Chain. We believe in you!)

First up is Reading Nook. I love the teal/maroon/mustard color-scheme going on in this collection, and of course all the silly and cute prints! The cat faces especially - I just can't. We're only getting yardage of nine prints in this collection - the cats, the teabags, and the mice in the library. In addition to that, we'll also have Charm Packs, full-collection Fat Quarter bundles, all three colors of the cat-face canvas prints that are also part of this collection.

Since we'll have those beautiful large-scale prints, I decided to do something a little different for this inspiration post. In addition to some beautiful quilts that you'll be able to put together with the yardage and pre-cuts that we'll have available in the shop, I thought it would be fun to see what these prints would look like as lining to jackets! And oh boy... after I got started, I could not stop making mockups. I think it's possible I need some more jackets in my wardrobe...

If you want to try making your own jacket mockups, you can use this tool, but be warned: it's a little different than the normal quilt mockup tools. I made it with the intention of using the repeat-able images you can find in the Reading Nook fabric listings. These images are great for filling large areas, but they don't have a ruler along the bottom - so the tool doesn't try to remove any rulers from the images you'll add, so you'll need to find images of the fabrics you want without a ruler on the bottom.

Okay, okay - on to the mockups!


Lined Jackets!

And honestly, inspiration for lined bags too...


Jacket in Reading NookJacket in Reading NookJacket in Reading Nook

These three jackets use Essex Linen in black, and honestly, all nine prints in Reading Nook that we have coming to the shop looked great paired with it and I had a hard time choosing just 3 to share.

The linings of these three are (in right-to-left order):
Reading Nook - Meow Meow - Galaxy
Reading Nook - Tea Time - Balmy
Reading Nook - Meow Meow - Balmy


Jacket in Reading NookJacket in Reading Nook

These two jackets also use Essex Linen, the first one in Metallic Jet and the second in Olive. I love the formal-yet-fabulous look of the dark black jacket with a little bit of sparkle, lined with the silly pink cat fabric, and the olive + teal library screamed "cool professor" to me (just needs a couple of elbow patches).

Jacket in Reading NookJacket in Reading Nook

These last two I was experimenting with the new Impromptu cotton canvases that we just got in the shop. Busy? Yes. Awesome? Oh yah. I like the Big Fleur canvas with the yellow library print - it reminds me of rainy (yet somehow sunny?) spring days in the Pacific Northwest. The Secret Code canvas print paired with the blue teabags makes me think of a sleepy archeologist dunking a bag of Earl Grey into their steaming mug as they stand in the flap of their field-tent and gaze off into the distance as the sun rises on the desert. Woah! Excuse me while I go queue up some Brendan Fraser...


Cameo - Throw


Taralee Quiltery Cameo Quilt in Reading Nook

Taralee's new quilt pattern, Cameo, is going to be released in May, but it's just sooo good in Reading Nook. This version takes 9 Fat Quarters and some background and accent yardage. 

This pattern finishes at 60" x 69" and uses the following fabrics to recreate it:


Crumb Coat - Large Throw


Taralee Quiltery Crumb Coat Quilt in Reading Nook

Taralee's Crumb Coat Quilt is usually a great way to use a Layer Cake (10" x 10" squares), but this variation uses yardage of both the Reading Nook prints and some coordinating Speckled.

This pattern finishes at 67" x 67" and uses the following fabrics to recreate it:


Spruce Woods -Throw


Spruce Woods Quilt in Reading Nook

The teal tones are my favorites in this collection, and I love how they're highlighted in this Spruce Woods Quilt from The Blanket Statement.

This quilt finishes at 64" x 64" and takes the following fabrics to recreate:


Half Square Triangles - Baby


Small HST Quilt in Reading Nook

This quilt pattern is a quick little make that uses a charm pack and some background fabric. Since this quilt is made up entirely of half square triangles (HSTs), you can arrange them in a myriad different ways depending on the look you're going for. Caroline put together a blog post with a bunch of different charm pack half-square triangle layout ideas!

This particular quilt finishes at 36" x 36" and uses these fabrics:


Clava - Baby


Baby Clava Quilt in Reading Nook

I love the drama of the big bold curves in the Clava Baby quilt and using that big full moon to highlight large-scale prints.

This quilt finishes at 39" x 48" and uses the following fabrics to recreate it:


Clava - Throw


Clava Throw in Reading Nook

Here's the bigger-sized Clava Quilt! It's incredible how you can take the same shapes and the same fabrics and create a totally different feel.

This quilt finishes at 57" x 57" and uses the following fabrics to recreate it:


The Picnic Quilt


Picnic Quilt in Reading Nook

This one was Ruby Star Society's Summer Quilt-Along from 2022. I have two different mockups of this pattern using Reading Nook - this first one utilizes Charm Packs to get a little bit of all the different prints.

This quilt finishes at 67.5" x 67.5" and uses the following fabrics to recreate it:


Picnic Quilt in Reading Nook

Here's the second Picnic mockup - this one uses half of a Reading Nook full collection Fat Quarter bundle to create a more cohesive (less scrappy, but still a bit scrappy) look.

This pattern finishes at 68" x 68" and uses the following fabrics to recreate it:


These mockups are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to things that you all can create with the Reading Nook collection from Ruby Star Society! If you end up recreating any of these quilts (or jackets!), we would love to see them! You can always share your makes with us on Instagram or send us over an email. We can't wait to see what you will create!