Making Under the Sea part 2

In my last post I wrote all about how I made the fish on my quilt Under the Sea.

The quilt was supposed to be all about the different textures under water and so I made lots of little folds in the rocks at the bottom and the idea was that it would be a good place to insert all sorts of different coral.

Textured rocks

I thought it was a good idea at the time but I don't think that I would do it again. I had to add some bits of wadding behind some of the folds so they didn't collapse and it was quite difficult to quilt.

I made lots of different types of coral using felt and embroidery thread.

Making the coral

Here is a photo of me trying to place the coral on the rocks into a pleasing composition. I was really starting to think that the quilt was not going to work at this stage.

Inserting the Coral

I made the large red and green coral by thread painting it onto water soluble plastic.

Thread painting the red coral

I made the green cords using a cording foot on my sewing machine but I coloured the white cord with my fabric pen first in case there were some gaps in the thread. I used a fine white piping cord for the reeds.

Painting the cord

Covering the piping cord with thread

As I was constructing the quilt I always imagined that those cords would go on the right side of the quilt.

Trying to place the cords

In the end the cords ended up on the left side of the quilt because it was too busy over there on the right.

Placing the cords on the left of the quilt

I made the leaves separately by thread painting them onto water soluble plastic but next time I might try and make them by attaching them to the cords as I sew them. They were quite fiddly to attach to the cords afterwards.

Thread painting the leaves

 Here is a photo of the completed quilt.

Under the Sea©2015 Linda Steele

I really enjoyed making this quilt and maybe I will make another one day. I had to make the quilt 100cm high and only 40 cm wide because of the size requirements for the contest. It would be interesting to make another one in a horizontal format.

Bye for now,
Linda