My Prodigy

Last weekend I lost my mind.  It was bound to happen, but I thought it would happen when she was older. My daughter turned seven on Monday, and by Saturday, she was running my longarm!

Last month, at the Maine Quilt show, she conned me and her Nana to get her 3 fat quarters.  She'd have bought more if I'd not put my foot down and insisted she just shop at the free stash store!  So a couple weeks ago while her brothers were busy, she and I layed out this lap quilt.  It finishes at about 50"x58".   Last year she started a small doll quilt, and earlier this summer she got it out and finished the hand quilting. Mind you, this has huge stitches, and clearly looks like it was done by a 5-6 yr old.  But she was proud and I was amazed by her attention span to finish the quilting.  When this recent project came to fruition, it quickly grew from a dolly quilt to one for her.  I was pretty sure right off that she wouldn't be hand stitching anything this large just yet.   She doesn't yet use the sewing machine, so I cut and machine pieced this together in an afternoon.  She stuck close by, bringing me pieces, making sure that they were in the right order for the pattern.  I told her that if I had a couple client quilts off the frame by last weekend, then I'd let her try quilting it.  It is always a crapshoot guessing whether I will have the machine free on the weekends or not.  I knew we had 2 days to get 'er done!

I set her up with the easiest pantograph I have - Flutterby.  She liked the butterflies.  She's too short to quilt from the frontside, and it was too tricky doing it with a 12"x12" stool.  If I had a 48" long stool, it would have been feasible.  Another day.  She did a great job manipulating this large machine.  Albeit, many of the butterflies are bumpy and not perfectly shaped, but she does not really care.  I told her I would quilt it for her, OR she could do it and then  she could enter it at MQX if she wanted.  Eye on the prize (have you seen this before??!), she chose to do it.  She chose a nice Aqua YLI polished poly thread, which performed wonderfully...not a thread break whatsoever.

The back is flannel and will be oh-so-snuggly when the cooler weather hits. After it is bound...sigh, add that to my list of to do's.

As for me, I have knocked 4 quilts off my backlog since the kids started school 4 days ago (that many have come back in the door though!).  Working, working, working :-)  I'll have some pics next time!~

(her recent birthday picture)