Guitar Quilt

Hello everyone. I've been very busy this weekend working on a special project. You may not know this about me, but I sing (and sometimes play keyboard) in our church praise band. We practice every Sunday and play for the student vespers services on Wednesday nights. I'm lucky enough to do this with my husband (who plays guitar) and several other students at UW Madison. We are the oldest members of the band, being 27 and graduated. So, we probably won't be in the band again next year since it is primarily students who should have the opportunity to serve in the band.

Anyway... Our band leader and his wife donate their time and talents to directing us musically and spiritually. As a show of appreciation for their time and talents I've been working on a wall hanging for them. For their 40th wedding anniversary, our band leader's wife gave him his dream guitar - a Gretsch Country Gentleman. So, I decided to make a fabric replica. Here's a picture of me goofing off with the pattern once it was all drawn up.

I spent all day Saturday getting the major pieces sewn down. Here's what it looked like when I went to bed.

Since then, I've been able to include some of the hand stitching and embroidery elements. I also squared up the edges of the top so it's ready for borders. The longest part was doing all of the frets on the neck, but it looks so much more complete. So, here's what it looks like now.

Sorry for the horrible lighting and awful picture quality, but the sun went to bed hours ago!!!

To finish the guitar I just need to add some detail to the neck and embroider in the strings. Otherwise, it's pretty much done. To finish the quilt, I need to add a border. I'm also going to add some wording to the front. My husband and I are deciding if we will use a line from a bible passage or a hymn or some other saying. It may be a combo of all 3. :) I guess we'll find out soon.

On the back, I am going to have a label with the signatures of all of this year's band members. I'll embroider each one of those and I just need to get a few more autographs to get started with that.

What I'm not sure about is how to quilt it. This is the first applique quilt I've ever done, so I would love any suggestions people might have. I've thought about stippling in the background or echoing the outline of the guitar, but am not sure. I also don't know what I would do on the inside of the guitar or how much I'll need to do on that area considering it's just a wall hanging. So, what do you guys think?