Okay, you would think that all the way back in September we knew graduation was coming and could have started planning then.....but we didn't. Now, my colleague and I want to make a quilt for our special grad student.

Here's the plan:
I will piece a top
She will applique a full-size silhouette of his guitar on it
We will sandwich, quilt and bind it

Fabric ideas:
psychedelic, wild colours in a crazy block pattern
or red blocks with black sashing

HERE'S what I need from you - What would you do if you were making a quick quilt top that would provide a good host background to a large silhouette?

This boy's favourite colour is black, music is death metal, guitar is "rocker" style. We plan for this to be single-size - basically large enough to lay a guitar nicely across on a diagonal.

I like the idea of making a fractured background of wild psychedelic colors with a black guitar silhouette on top.

To make the fractured background, you could iron strips of freezer paper together -- just overlapping a piece about an inch and ironing it into place to stay; you could glue or tape also. Once you have a huge sheet of freezer paper the size of the quilt, you could draw fractures (lines) at odd angles throughout. You would want to start with a few lines going out to the edges, to break the quilt down into smaller sections to be pieced. Number the pieces and draw registration marks connecting each piece so you can match them up later. Cut along the fracture lines (just one section at a time). Iron each paper piece to a piece of psychedelic fabric, match the registration lines, and sew pieces together.

I am currently reading "Fabric Journey" by Ruth McDowell so am heavily influenced by her method right now! I've never done this myself, but it sounds fairly easy. I think this would make a very interesting background for the guitar, especially if you have wild colors and patterns (maybe some tie-dye?).

If you have time, once the background is pieced and appliqued, you could cut off the edges and insert a black border before adding the cut-off pieces back. This would create an interior border to frame the guitar.

For this piece, I would *definitely* spray baste to save time and use a cotton batting or 80/20 batting (because spray basting holds so much better with cotton batt, plus cotton batting stands up to a lot of use and abuse over time).

Just my thoughts.....

It took me a few readings to "get" how to do this - but by jove, I think I got it. Basically, using freezer paper to make a life-sized pattern for a quilt that is essentially one huge block! Love it.
I'm still struggling with this border thing, though. Framing the guitar is a great idea. Won't the part we cut off be too small to fit back on once there is a border inserted? Am I picturing too wide a border? I see either a very narrow (1/4") border and the outer section hiding shortcomings in the binding, or a wider border with black squared on the outer corners.

Being pressed for time I'd find a wild batik for the background. Simple and dramatic

the above poster's idea is brilliant and that book is excellent.

just to make the above idea easier......

i design the fractures in the computer and then i print it out onto freezer paper.

all the lines and reg marks are printed right onto the paper.

My first thought was a wild batik as well. Save yourself sewing time! :lol:

I think the psychedelic fabric would be cool. The black guitar would show up really nice.

[quote=b.zang]Umm, you're right, I hadn't thought of that.

I just cut up a notecard to see how it might work out. You could wait until the background is done to audition some black strips to see what width of black border would look best and in what placement. The directions below are for what I was thinking of -- a 2-inch black border 3 inches in from the edges of the quilt.

Cut off 3 inches of fractured background from the short sides of the quilt first, then the long sides. Seam the black strips to the long edges of the quilt first, then the short edges. That would make a complete black border. The long fractured strips you cut off are still the right length to add to the long ends. The short ends would need to have some fabric added but, since it's a fractured background anyway, you could just randomly add some additional fractured fabric to the short strips until they are long enough. Alternatively, you could create fractured cornerstones to add on to the short strips, or just cut four cornerstones from an interesting fabric to "ground" the quilt.

I'd wait and see if it looked better with a black binding or a psychedlic fabric binding. (I'm thinking the psychedelic binding so the quilt just wanders off into space.....)

Oh, and when making the fractured fabric, I'd try to keep a lot of the pieces fairly large. This would make the background go together faster.

Great idea! I knew that this is the right place to come for help.

Well, I just realizee the cut-off long ends would also need some fractured fabric added because of the black fabric on the short ends. However, that should be pretty easy to do.

Good luck! And let us know how it turns out.