Help...I need inspiration
 

I have been collecting musical themed material to make a quilt for my best friend who recently received her masters in music. I have finally collected enough to start her quilt and I am blanking on what pattern to use, even going so far as to look at cross stitch pattern to maybe adapt into a quilt.

I am stumped.
Does anyone have a great musical themed quilt example that might break my brain's log jam free.

Thanks in advance for your help.

I am probably considered an intermediate level quilter. I am not afraid to go small and detailed, but some of the fabrics would losevthere impact being cut small. I have debated doing something simple like using the friendship star block and alternating it with a more complex square with the more forgiving patterns. Thought about doing a twisted French braid quilt. The other thing is I am not an applique'r. I tend to like more modern style quilts and usually don't work off of a pattern rather use an inspiration quilt or ten and adapt it to what is in my head. The hang up I think is I don't want to cut these materials small. I have debated creating a large piano keyboard pattern using the colored fabrics to make maybe 5-7 inch "white" keys and the black patterned pieces to do the flat and sharp keys. That just seems very much like taking the easy way out. I know I am over thinking this.

Not all quilts have to be complicated...specially when you want to
showcase the fabric. Modern might be the way to go. Have you checked
Google Image for musical theme quilts? There are some nice ones there.

I just finished a quilt for my DGD. It is called "Sliding Scale". It was a free pattern on the Wyndham Fabric site.
It turned out so great. It had notes and piano keys.

You could make a Swoon Quilt with the fabric, since the 24" block version would still lend itself well to large scale prints. That's what I'm using for my musical quilt after I finish up quilting my current project.

Actually, my current project would also work well if you're ok with something simple, since the pieces are also large. This is the Boho Girl Quilt Pattern that's available on McCalls website.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]583258[/ATTACH]

I also recently finished a diagonal striped quilt that would work well too.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]583259[/ATTACH]

I've done this kind of stuff before....interpreting a life into a fabric piece.

If she is a music major, then how about following sheet music. A bargello with sections where the size of the square indicated the bravado of the music. Ask her what her favorite song is. Then choose parameters for high notes vs. low notes and assign a size of the bargello strip to the melody. How big does she want? Then choose 3 or 5 (odd numbers) sections across the quilt.

Maybe not your skill level. I could help you with it if you PM me.

Marcia

[ATTACH=CONFIG]583271[/ATTACH]This is a rag rug I did to commerate the loss of the Twin Towers in NYC. It's on my wall in my living room right now. My interpretation is that the skyline is a blur. I was raised in mountains and not around any buildings, so all buildings look about the same to me. So the buildings in the skyline look indistinguishable. Then the twin towers, (blue-green-teal) are gone in the skyline. They are only found in the reflection of the water (orange background) of the Hudson River. All we have left is the reflection in our minds of what they were. The skyline is navy for the dark streets. The breaks in the lines of the towers are shimmering in the water's reflection.

It's a rag rug. But it is much taller than my ceiling, so only part of the sky is shown which is a bit smokey.

When I had it in my studio I would ask people what is it??? What does it say??? Only one in about 300 would get it, but those that did burst into tears.

After I pointed out the specific parts, then they could see it, but as the creator, I wanted them to come up with it by themselves.

I've since sold the rug business and bought a long arm. Was trying to hand stitch a binding yesterday and my hand kept going to sleep.

Does your friend have a particular instrument that she plays?? I saw a fabulous pattern a number of years ago using a watercolor-style technique that featured a large piano as the focus of the overall quilt. I was actually going to make one for a friend of mine as well but decided since it was a joint (husband/wife) quilt and the piano was 'her' thing, to go in a different direction.

Granted, with that technique your fabrics would end up being cut relatively small they would definitely lose some of their focus value but you could do some fussy-cutting if you were up for that. A different watercolor style quilt I did a number of years ago I used 2.5" blocks and it wasn't too horrible.

And welcome from NJ.

I did one for my Grandson with MSQC Big Star pattern and it was a big hit. Works great to show off all sizes of prints. I had MSQC do the machine quilting with a musical note pattern so it was reversible with white backing and black thread. Front is red, white and black. I don't have a picture.