Miss K's Mermaid Post 3

Mermaid with border

We had a sleepover so that Miss K could make progress on her quilt project. She cut one more yellow flower for her mermaid. It was the perfect pick for the remaining space!

Next she stitched the border to her piece. This fabric was in Martha's scrap bag. We chatted about how to join the border to allow the pattern to continue. She decided she wanted the green on the outer edge. I liked her choice.

At the condo where we stayed in Maui, Hawaii, we saw orchids flowering in trees and in border plantings. We also were given flower leis when we went to a luau so I understood why using that border fabric was so important to her!

There wasn't enough of the fabric for the entire border. I showed her how to piece the upper right corner so that there was enough for the sides. We had a discussion about options for the bottom border. She decided that she wanted a cream colored patch so she had space to write her piece's name which is "Mermaid Vacation." I thought that was great problem solving!

Writing the first draft of her story

For the backing, in my stash was a triangle from a fat quarter that featured ice cream cones on a pink background. She wanted to use that fabric because we had a shave ice one day on our vacation. She was disappointed that there wasn't enough fabric for the entire back.

I encouraged her to write a short story about her vacation on a separate piece of fabric that we would add to the ice cream cone fabric. I showed her some pieced backs of my projects. She liked that idea and she wrote a draft of her story.

The pieced back with story

Next, she ironed a piece of freezer paper to a chunk of muslin from Martha's stash. Miss K wasn't sure about "paper" being part of her project. She thought that it was cool the shiny side of the freezer paper stuck to her fabric!

I drew some lines on the freezer paper and held the fabric to the light. Miss K saw how she was going to be able to write her story! When I laid the fabric on the table, Miss K immediately asked how could she see the lines. I introduced her to the light box. She thought the light box was an amazing tool.

She finished writing her story to the fabric and she wanted to know how the writing would stay. She asks the BEST questions! I asked her to remove the freezer paper. She wanted to know how and I said to pull it carefully from the back of the fabric. The look on her face was priceless. She expected a residue to be left and she expected the paper to tear! She decided freezer paper was a cool product to use for quilting!

Regarding her question, I told her that we would heat set the words with the iron which would make the ink permanent. . .as long as it wasn't washed a bunch of times. To which she replied it shouldn't need washing if it hung on a wall!

Her written story was: "We went on a snorkeling vacation in Hawaii. I had a mission to find a mermaid. We had breakfast on the ship and mango juice drink. Our family got in our snorkeling suits. We went in. I did not find a mermaid. My sister found a turtle and won a prize. My tummy hurt. I threw up. I had a hot dog for lunch on the ship. I had fun. The End."

I thought that she might want to play and take a break; but, she was ready for the next step. So I showed her some of my projects with different types of batting. She chose a wool batting because she wanted "fluffy!" We layered the back, the batting and the top. We pin basted the layers together. She didn't have much success with putting in the pins; but, she sure nailed how to close them with the quick clip tool!

Close up of tail quilting

We pulled different threads and looked at each spooled across the fabric. We talked about how some threads were shiny and some were thin. We looked at how those threads looked in a finished project. I sure thought Miss K would use different colors and weights of threads for added texture. She decided to use a monofilament thread so we wouldn't need to spend time rethreading the machine!

We free motion quilted around a flower in her mermaid's tail. Miss K looked to see if we were on the right track. She liked what she saw so we continued. In a few places, we have some long stitches and we have some places where we missed the edge of the fabric. I was okay with leaving it as she is learning.  She free motioned quilted all of the appliqué to the background on her piece. Miss K has no idea that some quilters find free motion quilting difficult! She wrote the name of her quilt and signed her work in that triangle square on the front.

Miss K spent about eight hours over two days moving her project from the designing stage to the quilting stage. She loves stitching.  She is thinking about how she wants to quilt the border and background. I look forward to our next session and watching this project develop!