Guitar wall hanging

This is Tilkunviilaaja's entry to the Bloggers' Quilt Festival hosted by Amy's Creative Side. My readers have already seen this wall hanging in November 2012.

Full name: "Pasin Versoul Henry Gold Leaf Custom"
Finished size: ~ 130cm x 170cm
Quilted by: Soile Kivinen from Töölön Tilkkupaja

I created this quilt for Husband, who plays the guitar and loves the Versoul guitars that are custom made by Finnish Kari Nieminen. In other words, I made him a guitar.


(This photo was taken before the quilt was mounted on the wall, and I prefer this picture because it shows pretty much the whole of the quilt and nothing else.)

The quilt is based on a photo that I found on Kari Nieminen's Versoul website. So that I would not infringe on his copyright, I requested and got the permission to use the photo for this purpose.

Soile Kivinen from Töölön Tilkkupaja longarm quilted this using a specially purchased quilting motif with a musical notes and keys pattern.

I developed this technique myself. I first pixelated the photo into as many pixels as I had calculated I could manage, when each pixel equalled a 5cm x 5cm (approximately 2" x 2") fabric square.

I printed out the picture. Then I looked at the colours in the picture and pulled out fabrics that seemed to be the right colours. This was an easy picture: black for the background and a variety of browns ranging from very light to very dark. As my piecing progressed, I discovered a need for a few squares of rather light blue fabric.

This is an example of my cutting zone – the floor.


Then, I drew a pencil line around an area on the printout of 3x3 pixel squares. I looked at that 3x3 square only and picked fabric squares that together created a similar square. Then I sewed these fabric squares into a nine-patch block.

I numbered the 3x3 pixel square on the printout, wrote the number on a small piece of paper and attached the paper on the nine-patch. These were two of the nine-patch blocks that I sewed.


Since I numbered each block, I did not have to worry about keeping them in a certain order. This was important, by the way, because I had to keep this a secret from Husband.

Simple! In theory, at least. This was very much like colour by numbers. Only I had no numbers, I made them up as I went along.

When I had all or pretty much all the blocks done, I sewed the nine-patches together into rows, in the numbered order.


When the rows were done, I put them on the floor in the correct order to check if they would look like a guitar. They did!


I was so relieved. I'd sewn 90+ nine-patches so I was glad that they worked the way I'd figured they would!

Because the background of the guitar was black, I used black strips instead of small squares sewn together, to make up the rest of the picture.


The edges of the picture straightened:


The picture also got a frame:


And the finishing touch from professional longarm quilting.


What a feat it was to sew all of this in the sewing room bedroom without Husband noticing what I was doing. But I managed, and he was really surprised when I handed this wall hanging to him on his birthday!

Thank you Amy for organising the Bloggers' Quilt Festival again this year!

Kommentit

Tiinatei sanoi…
It was nice to read the whole history of the guitar!
Renee sanoi…
What a great gift! And quilt an undertaking to keep it a surprise! You did a fantastic job on it.
CitricSugar sanoi…
Great translation from photo to quilt! Lovely work.
i'm working on a paper pieced guitar quilt for my son. your pixelated guitar is pretty great!
Mara sanoi…
Amazing, love all of the hard work!

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