Music Quilt

For the past couple years, my sister has come to visit me in November so that we can attend the International Quilt Show together in Houston, TX.  During her visits, we tend to do a lot of sewing too!  This year my mom came for the first time and it was great to be able to show her the quilt show too.

After the quilt show, we sewed two quilts.  The first quilt that we sewed was a music quilt for our Aunt.  Last year we sewed a 4th of July quilt for one of our Aunts, and we knew at that time that this year we would be making a quilt for a different Aunt.

My sister and I started planning this quilt in September.  We had decided on a foundation quilt with diagonal stripes of music fabric.  The music fabric that we chose was all black, white, and gray.

Here are the first four blocks that I sewed:

We had decided on a 9" block with a 6 block x 6 block layout and a border to make a nice couch cuddle size quilt. 

I quickly sewed up my 18 blocks:

After sewing my half of the quilt, I realized that I used very close to half of the fabric that we had purchased.  I carefully cut the rest of the fabric into strips and gave it to my sister (with strict instructions) when I saw her in October.  Her job was to finish her 18 blocks so that when we got together in November we could assemble the quilt.

After the quilt festival, my sister laid all the blocks out on my design wall and worked on organizing them so that the same fabrics weren't too close to one another (not an easy job, but she is so good at laying things out like this!).  I sewed up the rows and our mom was in charge of ironing.  We were lucky to finish the quilt top quickly and I quilted it while they were still in Houston.  The quilt then went home with my sister so that she could finish the binding.

We gifted it to our Aunt at Thanksgiving and she loved it :)