Miss J's Girl--Post 4; Second Finish 2nd Quarter FAL 2019

Ribbons awaiting beads

From the beginning of this project, Miss J wanted to hang beads somewhere on the project and she wanted a "sparkle" at the neck of her girl. Later the sparkle became a "diamond." When she needed breaks from hand stitching the binding, we talked about incorporating the beads.

Honestly, I wouldn't have considered adding beads to her piece. Since she is the artist/designer, my job was to figure out how she could execute her idea.

Pony beads and knot detail

I had a bag of ribbon bits that were in a variety of colors and that were in various widths. I showed her the bag. Miss J immediately selected blue, orange, green, purple, pink and red ribbons. I cut the ribbons according to her finger in the air drawing of what the edge should look like. . .uneven!!!

She decided that she didn't want her yellow binding covered up so she placed the ribbons on the back of the piece. I pinned the ribbons in place with her approval.

View of lower finished edge

Together, we machine stitched the ribbons to the binding. Then we hand stitched the binding to the cover the ribbon ends. The ribbons should be more secure this way.

Once we had the binding stitched over the ribbon, she chose her beads. I thought she would be able to thread the bead on the ribbon and tie a knot in the ribbon to hold the bead/beads in place.

Close-up of ribbon attachment

Miss J gave each process a try. The ribbon was too difficult for her to manage and the knot process frustrated her. To solve the issues,  she picked a bead, showed me where it went and told me where to put the knot. Sometimes, Miss J wanted double knots! She is a good supervisor. Sometimes, she placed like colors together. Sometimes, she wanted two beads on a ribbon. Sometimes, she wanted three beads. I didn't see a pattern; but I am impressed with how easily and confidently she made her selections. I loved her end result! I believe I witnessed random at its best!

Label

We finished hand stitching the binding. We moved on to applying the sleeve and the label.  At five, she lacks the dexterity to place the needle in the fabric for the hand stitching. We worked in tandem on this task. I inserted the needle, she pulled it through the fabric. It took us 15 minutes to stitch the first four
inches of the sleeve. When we reached the half way point, it took us six minutes to stitch four inches! We made a great team!

While we worked on the hand stitching, we talked about the name for her quilt. For the longest time, no name met Miss J's approval. We talked about, "The Girl, Girl, My Girl, Josie's Girl, Girl with the Hair Ribbons, Hair Ribbons and My First Quilt." Although these options merited her consideration, none met her approval. She stewed about the name.

She kept asking me what her quilt story would be. I told it was what ever she wanted it to be. She didn't like that answer! I told her that perhaps, her quilt's story would be a memory of all the time we spent together creating her quilt. She thought her memory would make a good story.

Girl complete with diamond

 Her papa suggested, "Josie's Jewel." Miss J was happy.  "Josie's Jewel" is a great name for her quilt. She informed both of us that the beads are like jewels so she liked his suggestion.

Miss J offered her thoughts about the other information that she felt was important to include on the label. She wanted her name, that she was five years old, when she started and when she finished. I was honored that she wanted to document my support! She picked a label from the label bag. I wrote the information and we added it to the sleeve.  Lastly, Miss J selected a crystal that we applied to the neck of her girl.

If you missed the previous posts, you can read
post 1, post 2 and post 3. Just click the links!

Miss J and her finished quilt

Miss J's plan is to enter her project in the county fair. Entries are due tomorrow.  Confronted with a goal, she knuckled down, stayed motivated and she met the deadline! She sure was proud to have finished her first quilt.  She is prouder yet that the youngest sister has a first in her family! (She is the first kid to complete a quilt in her family.)

This project was goal number 22 on my 2nd quarter FAL list. It is my second finish for the quarter. It is also a finish that is near and dear to my heart. I have such fond memories of this project!  We used half a hard of fabric so I have stitched 39 1/2 yards of the 57 1/2 yards that I want to stitch before the end of the year. I have 18 yards left to meet my goal!