Coral, Queen of the Sea

A few years ago, I bought the panel for Coral, Queen of the Sea by Stacy Iest Hsu.  The panel included a Coral Doll, doll-sized quilt, doll-sized pillow, Mr. Bubbles the seahorse friend, a doll skirt and a doll mermaid tail.  I stored the panel away hoping that a child in my life would go through a mermaid phase.

That's a lot of projects in one panel!

Fast-forward to early June when I was texting with my sister-in-law about my niece's current preferences.  She's super into mermaids!  Great timing, because we already had a July trip to visit her planned.  I dug out the panel and was thrilled to find that it was as cute as I remembered.

Noodle loves Coral and had a great time putting her to bed. 

I typically don't make 3-demensional projects.  This one was too cute not to buy, and I'm really happy with the end product, but I didn't enjoy some parts of the process.  The blanket was easy.  (I even quilted it for real instead of using the turn-it-inside-out-and-tie-it method in the directions.)  The pillow and Mr. Bubbles the seahorse friend were easy.  The doll was a little tricky, especially turning her limbs right-side out.  And the skirt and mermaid fin, well, I'm not sure I did those correctly.  I totally cheated and used ribbon instead of the printed ties for the closures.  Overall, while this is not my favorite kind of project, how can I be sorry about the extra fussy parts when this is the end result?

This was #7 on my list of Q3 goals for the Finish Along.