Illustrator: how to achieve a wave background letter without stokes

I have a situation. I've created a wave background using the blend tool, I also have a letter on top; not so sure how to fill the letter shape with that wavee background, loosing the letter strokes.

what I've done so far:

-Object/Expand the background
-Selected the letter > Create outlines
-Selected the background + The letter shape and using Pathfinder / Outlines I've done this:

Now, I've found an option to manually delete the stroke selecting the letter and using Isolate selected group but this will help me to delete each segment of the stroke one by one which is time consuming specially when we have more letters. Is there any other method to select the whole letter stroke and delete it automatically? Thanks.

Answer

I think you should use a tool called Clipping Mask

It's easier using the Clipping Mask tool where the letter (A) act like a mask for all objects underneath.

For doing that, make sure to put your letter (A) over the group of wavy strokes and select all artworks, then go to Object > Clipping Mask > Make or just Click CTRL + 7 ... That's it.

as you can see Illustrator will hide the mask strokes and keep it's content only, so you don't have to delete the stroke of the letter (A).

The advantage of this methods is you can change the content of that mask with any other content, in our case the waves could be changes by going to Object > Clipping Mask > Edit Content or released in anytime by going to Object > Clipping Mask > Release or click CTRL + ALT + 7