I said, “rrrROCK STARrrr!” Quilt

And it only took 12,000 fabric squares to do it.

The Riley Blake Spring 2017 Fabric Challenge is finished and  I cannot begin to tell you how relieved I am.

When I set out to make this challenge quilt I had a different design in mind. As I began telling Tim about my design idea, which involved recording studio images and some random digital voice patterns as well, he suggested that we record me saying the words rock star. I don’t always hold his attention when it comes to my quilting details and when I do, I try to incorporate his feedback as much as possible so I decided to do it. He pulled up his recording software, found the microphone and I conjured up my best Alice Cooper stance and said with much enthusiasm, “rrrROCK STARrrr!” into the microphone. He only had time for one take.  He printed it and I was off and running with a new idea for the Challenge.

From the digital image you can see that there is an abundance of detail to my voice. There was no way that I could replicate it all so I decided to break the image down into three main areas; the mid-section is the most intense for vocal sound, the second section is a bit less, and the third  outer area is the least intense. I played with various fabrics from the Creative Rockstar line and the red popped the most. Solo, Set List, and Surfing fabrics were used to create each area.

To define the area of speech I decided to outline it with Riley Blake solid gray fabric. The background fabric is Riley Blake licorice and for the binding I used various prints from the Creative Rockstar fabric line.

I noticed on my recording that there is a slight lead up to the word rock, a little pause before the word star,  and a little bit of a taper at the end of the word where I used a few r’s. To add that detail, I appliquéd some fun wavy lines before, between the words “rock” and “star”,  and at the end of the word.

Right in the middle of assembling the blocks I managed to wreck my right foot while exercising. Unable to stand, walk, or even drive put things behind schedule significantly. I was in full panic mode as the days passed and it seemed little progress was being made. It was a blessing in disguise because after I figured out how to prop up my foot while sewing and pressing, I was once again on a roll. Unable to drive while the foot healed allowed me to spend my entire day sewing and pressing.

So, I’m ready to take a break from sewing (I know, hard to believe!) I think I should attend to the mountains of stuff that have piled up around here and maybe reintroduce myself to the family.

A few pictures from the making of the quilt:

A few thousand pieces

6,300 squares ready to be pieced

Got pretty tired of looking at all those squares so I added circles to the back

Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 for the batting, Aurifil 2021, 2692, and 2605 thread were used for the piecing and quilting.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that I tried the new, clear nylon thread from Aurifil.  I have tried other brands of invisible thread and really had to fight with them. I’m happy to say that the Aurifil thread worked wonderfully well in my machine and in my quilt.  I’m sure that I will be using it again.