Viva la Compound!

I decided to make a quilt for an old internet friend who is having a baby in a month.  I have never actually met her in person but she was a part of a group of people that listened to an internet radio station called Compound Radio every day.  The station is no longer on the air, so no one really has a reason to talk to each other anymore.  I wish the station was still around.  I worked the graveyard shift at the casino and I would come home every morning and listen to the radio until 12 or 1 and then go to sleep.  In the morning Oliver Peck (who some might now know from the show Ink Master, he is also my tattoo artist) did a show, and after that came another show by a guy named Josh Lazie (former bassist for Danzig).  The radio station was actually based out of Josh's house and the other guys did their show either at Josh's house or over the internet at their own homes (or sometimes on the road, Oliver did his show from the Warped Tour every morning for one whole summer).  It worked like this, everyone would listen to the live stream over the internet and log on with their AOL Instant Messenger account.  Whoever was on the air at the time would start talking about some random topic and then everyone would join the convo with him via IM.  He would then talk about what other people were saying.  You learned the usernames of other people through these conversations and you would eventually IM them to make silly comments or whatever.  Many of us made friends through AOL IM.  It was social interaction every morning without having to leave the house, much like the blog universe is today.  Eventually it became a burden to Josh, which is totally understandable.  The radio station operated on donations only, there was no advertising.  At the end of the month he'd tell us how far away he was from paying the bill to keep the servers up and we'd all try to pitch in.  He had an obligation to be at his house every single morning to host his radio show, and I'm sure that got old.  Towards the end he got a job giving shark diving tours off the coast of Mexico. He would be gone and the radio would be off the air for a week or so until he came back.  Eventually, he just let it go and I don't blame him one bit.  Christine was one of the listeners that I talked to the most.  She was a fun girl from NY and has her own jewelry line called Candy Apple Jewelry (you should check it out, she has some really cute stuff).  I am friends with her on fb so I knew that she was having a baby in the Spring.  I also follow her on Pinterest, so I noticed that she had been pinning a lot of nautical themed decorations so I assumed that she had chosen a nautical theme for the baby's room.  I found some nautical fabric that I liked and made a simple plus quilt for her. I must say that I felt like a total stalker trying to figure out how to get the quilt to her baby shower while keeping it a surprise.  I had to message her sister-in-law to find out who was hosting the shower.  She let me know that Christine's mother was going to be hosting and luckily she helped me get her phone number.  I then called Christine's mother to see if I could mail the gift to her so that she could take it to the shower. Keep in mind that I had to explain to both of these people that I do not in fact know Christine personally, just over the internet, and I am wanting to send her a handmade gift.  Makes me sound like a creeper huh?  Luckily her mother agreed and did not treat me like a weirdo.  She said "oh of course! I'm sure she's going to love it!".  So I decided to cover the box in leftover Compound Radio stickers that I had laying around, then wrapping it with traditional baby wrapping paper and a bow.  On the outside I only put "Viva la Compound".  I thought it would make for a fun surprise, not immediately knowing who it was from.  On the inside I left a card saying that I thought it would be fun to surprise her and that I like the nautical theme that she picked and thought it would make a cute quilt. I then put the wrapped gift in a bigger box with some bubble wrap and mailed it off to NY in hopes that he mother would receive it in time for the shower. Well, the baby shower was yesterday and Christine messaged me last night to thank me and tell me how much she loved the quilt and how it was such a surprise.  Mission accomplished!  I'm thrilled that she liked it.

quilt front

quilt back

the box covered in stickers