Miss K's Mermaid--post 5

Beginning the wave quilting

It's been awhile since I've posted an update to Miss K's mermaid quilt project. The reason I haven't posted is because we haven't had many sew days together. It has been challenging finding the time to stitch together!

On one of the stitch days we had, we tacked the outside edge of the border to quilt sandwich to make it easier to apply the binding. Before we began, I asked Miss K if she remembered how to thread the machine. She said she did and she was right! She can even thread the eye of the needle!

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Finished wave quilting

I showed her how to hold her fingers to encourage the fabric to feed smoothly through the machine. She picked up the tips quickly. By the time she finished the border, she stitched like she had done it many times before!

She wanted to tackle quilting the waves next. She looked at various weights of thread in my thread stash. Miss K decided to use "thick" thread.  She pulled shades of blue because water is different colors! Miss K carefully selected two colors of blue thread for her water. Before we started, she retraced her wave drawing several times with her finger. Then, she traced a wave path on the fabric so I could see the sizes of her waves and the orientation of them.

She explained that the fish would make small waves because their tails were little; but, the mermaid's tail was large so she would make big waves. She has a great thought process! Sometimes, she wanted to stay on the stitching line and sometimes she didn't. I liked the texture that she created. She has no idea that some quilters find free motion quilting difficult! She finds the process fun! We spent about an hour quilting.

Sky quilted; binding in progress

On another stitching day, she quilted the sky which was the last of the areas to quilt. She started with a thread that we thought would be great; but, it wasn't the right thread because it didn't blend well with the background fabric. I agreed with her assessment.

She picked another variegated thread that worked well. After the sky quilting, she auditioned fabrics for the binding. In my head, I thought a solid black fabric would frame the piece well. She chose to audition a variety of purples and a few green fabrics. She is quick to determine if a fabric works well or not! I wish I had that ability! By the way, she eliminated the solid black fabric first.

In the end, she chose a purple batik fabric. I like her choice as it adds to the mood of her piece. When our session ended two hours later, she was ready to join the ends of her binding together. Her plan is to machine stitch the binding to the front of her project.

Her sister spent a lot of time hand stitching her binding in place. Miss K has no desire to spend that kind of time on her project. She, however, looks forward to adding beads to the fish so that they have eyes. She is most excited about adding hair to her mermaid!