The Riveting Quilt

Riveting was one of those designs that sat on the back burner for a while until the perfect fabric came along. Then, it happened twice.

Riveting quilt pattern. modern quilt pattern by geekybobbin, quilt design mocked up in EQ8

I first proposed this pattern for QuiltCon Magazine, with the fabric choices described as “solids or low-volume science/math themed prints in 4 shades of grey from almost-black (background) to medium grey.”

Inset half circless. curved piecing. libs elliott Almost Blue fabric.

Before I heard back from them, Libs Elliott asked if I had any designs I’d like to make using her Almost Blue line for the Andover booth for Quilt Market in Houston.

A perfect quilt for a boy. Riveting quilt pattern by geeky bobbin, in denim themed fabrics by Libs Elliott. — My 6-year-old helped me choose the fabric layout. He fell in love with the fabrics, and asked if he could keep the quilt. Here he is, snuggled under it on a sick day just after it got home from Quilt Market.

Denim-themed prints and hardware-inspired design were a match made in heaven. I saw this as the perfect Father’s Day quilt, baby boy quilt (for those with narrow expectations of gender), engineering graduation quilt, or tool girl quilt. Libs loved it, and we decided that a fat quarter friendly version with a nearly white background would showcase the fabric line best.

Left: Riveting twin size in Almost Blue, designed, pieced, and quilted by Geeky Bobbin.
Right: The Fortress in Almost Blue, designed and pieced by Libs Elliott, quilted by Geeky Bobbin. Photo courtesy of Andover Fabrics.

My testers and I got to work! While I was working on the Almost Blue quilt, I was thrilled to find out that my proposal to QuiltCon Magazine was accepted!

I had toyed with the idea of using the Almost Blue quilt for both purposes, sending it straight from Houston to the publisher, but the timing just didn’t work out, so I knew I was making a second Riveting quilt right after the first!

I went digging for the right black and grey math/science fabrics. But when I turned to my (not-insignificant) stash of geeky prints, I didn’t have the right combination of greys in the right quantities.

I almost went with solids (they would certainly be appropriate for QuiltCon!), but I couldn’t shake the idea of using a variety of subtle metallic prints to riff off the idea of metal rivets, nuts and bolts. I had just scored some Tattooed North yardage on sale, and the black with copper stripes was calling to me. I mocked it up with some other Libs metallics, got hooked on having the stripes run in different directions, called in some expert fabric pull assistance from my friends at Purple KATZ Quilting (greys are so hard to read in pictures and mock-ups!) and landed on the final pull.

I didn’t exactly hang around my quilt at QuiltCon, but I did maybe walk by it a few extra times and eavesdrop on what people were saying about it. Mostly, I heard them talk about the fabric choices, which in retrospect, validates all the time I spent fretting over getting it right.