Riley Blake Challenge Quilt

Riley Blake Challenge share time!

Hey there! Bonus post for the week!

I wanted to share some quick pictures of a project that I’ve had to keep secret for a little while… unless you follow me on Instagram, because I couldn’t help myself and I did share a few sneak peeks of the the quilt in progress over there.

Image from The Modern Quilt Guild Community

The Spring 2018 Riley Blake Contest

Hosted by the Modern Quilt Guild.

I was sent one fat eighth of each piece from Riley Blake’s new line of fabric with the only instructions being “make something quilted using only Riley Blake fabric”. That is it.

Complete creative freedom? I’m in.

After narrowing down all the possibilities, triangles stood out to me… Why? Mostly because I think I often shy away from them. I’m a chicken. I am a perfectionist at heart and triangles seem to demand a lot of perfection. I feel situations like that set me up for disappointment if I can’t get it juuuust right.

So… I should choose squares or something that is less intimidating, right? Something that I’m more comfortable with? ….. wrong, you don’t know me very well if that is what you thought I would do, silly 🙂

No, no… I decided to make the whole quilt triangles, and then add in more triangles to that! My plan was then to obsess over it a little more after that.

Let me just say… it wasn’t so bad. At least not like I thought it was going to be. If you’re afraid of triangles, just do it already. Its a common fear among beginners (and people who just choose to steer clear of them). Is my work perfection? No. Is most everyone else going to notice? Again, no.

I wrote a blog on stepping out of your comfort zone and this quilt challenge was one of those moments for me.

About the Quilt

I *love* the colors of this quilt. Navy is totally my jam. (Do people say that anymore?… jam? Whatever… I’m a mom. I’m allowed to say things way past when they’ve gone out of style)

The mixing of the Navy with the crisp white is such a timeless combination. Add in the rose gold and…. well well well, we have ourselves a rather classy set of quilting fabric!

I also chose the aqua fabric as an accent fabric to bring in a little fun and not make it feel so structured – A little crazy to the ‘elite’ party, if you will. 🙂

I think my favorite part is the little strip of aqua in the piping with the quilt binding! Isn’t it fun?

The pattern for the quilt was not planned out in advance. I live on the wild side. Because there was no specific size requirements for this competition, I cut out as many triangles as I could from the fat eights and then supplemented in more coordinating Riley Blake Fabric to add volume and size to the over all piece.

“Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend”

The name of the quilt piece is more of an allude to the quilting decisions that I made more than the shape of the pieces.

I may have used triangles all over the quilt, but it doesn’t mean that me and triangles are exactly besties (yet?). I’m pretty sure there will always be a bit of a riff between us.

I feel like I conquered triangles a bit through this quilt and even though I could use some tweaking (like, so much) to obtain perfection… overall, I am really happy with how it turned out. I’m not a big fat chicken afraid of triangles anymore.

I’m not certain when they will announce the winner of the competition. Sometime in May. A quick google search didn’t reveal a concrete date. Once the final quilt has been chosen, it will go on display behind the Riley Blake Booth at Spring Quilt Market. Absolute fame without the fortune 🙂 .. still, an incredible honor.

My hopes are up but not sky high. I’ve taken a peek at a few fellow competitor quilters on Instagram ( #mqgfabricchallenge and #rileyblakedesigns) and… you people and your creations are nothing short of amazing! There is such talent in this world!

If my quilt entry wins, I’m positive you’ll know about it because I’ll never ever shut up about it. But win or lose, I really enjoyed being a part of the whole experience. I call that a win 🙂