Sounds of Light-Part 1

In 2008 my dear friend Dr. Linda Kelly celebrated her 20th anniversary as organist and choirmaster at our church.  The parish had a big celebration and I decided to design and make a quilt for her for the occasion.  I knew I wanted to incorporate both her and the fabulous Bedient organ which is in our choir loft.  I started by taking several pictures of the organ; these are the best I could get due to the architecture of the church , but you can get an idea of the scale of the instrument and the way it was designed to perfectly fit the space.

After taking the pictures I made a line drawing (not my strong suit) of the organ and turned it into a foundation piecing pattern.  It took quite a while for me to get it drafted and even remotely proportional, but I succeeded.  After finalizing my initial drawing, I had it enlarged and printed out, then traced it onto freezer paper.  Here are my finalized initial drawing and the enlarged (full size) pattern.

Initial 8.5x11 drawing

Full size drawing

I decided to place the organ on a background of a radiating sunrise illuminating the darkness of night.  I designed the background in EQ6, and printed/enlarged it the same way.

block for background, designed in EQ6

After enlarging and tracing onto freezer paper, I numbered the piecing order etc.  There are a few smaller pieced parts that aren't labeled on the large pattern; for example I added in lines to piece the organist hair,  some of the organ pipes, and the chevrons in the sun rays.  I paper (foundation) pieced the whole background, then pieced the organ the same way, then appliqued the organ onto the background.

Here's how the organ part looked after piecing:

The organ pipes in the two sections flanking the middle are pieced (with black pieces at the bottom) to emphasize the pipe shape, while I used that fabulous grey print (it's one of my favorite fabrics) with the swirly stripes for the other pipe pieces.

Stay tuned: on Wednesday, the whole quilt!