Miss J's Girl--Post 3

Pin basting the layers together

Miss J decided that she wanted to sign her work and then layer it for quilting. She chose a wool batting because it was light. She liked ironing the backing fabric that she choose. Perhaps, she liked spraying the fabric with water even more than ironing it though!

She talked about threads and she looked through the color choices that I have.

Free motion quilting with J driving

To start quilting, we used a silk thread and outlined the girl. She had chosen a metallic silver thread to stitch a "breezy" background. Unfortunately, I was unable to adjust the tension to make it work for this project. So we chose a pinkish silk thread instead. Parts of the surface are heavily painted so the holes are larger in that area. At the end of our first quilting session, she had quilted around the outline of her girl, ditch quilted the join of the background to the pieced orange strip and stitched gentle curved lines in the background of her girl.

In our next day together, she decided there wasn't enough "wind" stitched in the background. So we quilted a ring of circles and then some magic happened.

Quilting patterns and the binding

She said let's quilt this. . .and she drew a shape in the air. I gave her a scrap piece of paper and a pencil. She drew her shape. It is interesting to see what "wind" looks like to her. We stitched her shapes and then she was finished quilting for the day.

I asked her if it was finished and she said no. She said she would work on it the next Papa and Gran day. We spent a number of Papa and Gran days following the format of her drawing shapes on a piece of paper and then quilting it. She is beginning to get the hang of driving/moving the fabric under the needle. She delighted in sharing her progress with her mom and her dad!

When she finished quilting the background, I asked how she wanted to finish the edge. I envisioned a facing finish and showed her an example. Miss J said, "no." She led me to a wall hanging that is finished with a binding. She wanted fabric on the side and she wanted the fabric to be yellow! I pulled the drawer of yellow choices and Miss J made her choice in about a minute. We adjusted the width until it was the size she said was right. We machined stitched the binding to the quilt top after we trimmed the edges. The binding is double fold. It started as a one and one quarter inch wide strip. It is a skinny binding. It compliments her design beautifully.

As we hand stitched the binding, we talked about the label and how to add the finishing embellishments. There is more to her quilt's journey. In the meantime, I'm sharing one of our Monday breakfasts. She gets to choose what we cook for breakfast. To ensure that we have the ingredients, she needs to think ahead and make her choice on Wednesday for the following Monday.

Waffles, butter, jam, ice cream and strawberries

During one ordering session, she said I wouldn't like what she wanted. I was thinking she was going to ask for Oreo cookies because she knows I don't like them. Had she chosen Oreo cookies, I would have said yes because one can have all sorts of foods for a meal. Why limit your choices because of the time of day?

Miss J said she wanted pancakes, strawberries and then what I wouldn't like-- ice cream. I replied that I loved that kind of breakfast; but, that I liked waffles better because it held the ice cream better. Miss J replied, "Oh, I meant waffles!"

When Monday arrived, she stirred the ingredients together for the waffles. Dairy upsets her stomach so we made the waffles from scratch and we substituted a nut milk for the dairy milk. We used dairy free butter and ice cream for the toppings too! Dairy doesn't agree with me either. Although, I can tolerate a little dairy. I can also eat butter with no problem. Unfortunately, Miss J's stomach/intestinal tract can't process butter either.

When the waffle was ready, we spent about five minutes placing the condiments in just the right places. How her plate looks is important to her. Notice, that she chose a red plate as the base for her creation. She ate two waffles; but, on the second one, she omitted the ice cream. I'm going to miss our Monday breakfasts when she goes to kindergarten next fall!