Rocking the Riley Blake Rockstar Fabric Challenge

"Rock or Bust"

Each year, Riley Blake fabrics sponsors a fabric challenge for Modern Quilt Guild members.  This year I was able to sign up to receive a free fabric challenge bundle featuring six prints from the Creative Rockstar collection.  Participants are able to supplement with additional prints from the collection as well as include any Riley Blake solids.  I had some difficulty locating coordinating solids from my local quilt shops and so I played it safe by purchasing some neutrals from an online shop:  black, grey and white.  Back in March, I visited a fairly new quilt shop, Quilters Hollow in Stockton, CA and added a coordinating red and light teal solid to my challenge stash.

I drew inspiration from the challenge collection's name:  Creative Rockstar focusing more on the Rockstar.  In my brainstorming/research, I kept seeing images of stars and lightening bolts--iconic images associated to some of the classic rock bands:  Metallica, Kiss, Slayer, Aerosmith, Foo Fighters and AC/DC.  I drew a lightening bolt block in Electric Quilt 7 and experimented with different sizes, layouts and colorways.

"For Those About to Rock":  Rock Star Challenge Fabrics and EQ7 Design

In order to achieve crisp lightening bolt points, I opted to foundation piece my blocks which went together super fast.  In fact, once I narrowed down my layout/colorway, I managed to cut out my fabric swatches, foundation piece all 12 blocks and complete my quilt top in just one day!

"Back in Black"

The next day I got to work on the quilting.  I started by stitching in the ditch along the columns using Aurifil 50-weight black (#2692) and then used a matching Aurifil red-orange (#2245) and light teal (#1148) to stitch my favorite zig zag meander into the black background areas.  I was initially stumped on how I wanted to quilt the white and grey background areas, until I came across a motif posted on Christina Cameli's A Few Scraps blog featuring a row of stars that are super fun and easy to stitch using Aurifil light/medium grey (#2605) and white (#2024).  I intentionally left the lightening bolts unquilted so they would pop.  I used the light teal solid for my quilt back, which really highlighted the quilting on the reverse.

"Let There Be Rock"

For one last pop of color, I used the red solid with a small "schnibble" of the large red on white triangle prints for the binding.  I am still in awe that I finished this challenge one full week before the deadline!!  I chose AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" for my quilt title...and now the song's opening/chorus is totally stuck in my head!!

"Thunderstuck" finishes 24" x 24"