Making Under the Sea

In the last post I wrote about my latest quilt called Under the Sea, it was a boring quilt name but I didn't have much time to think of a name, I was too focused on getting the quilt finished.

I am getting into the habit of taking progress photos as I make my quilts these days. In the past I used to try and write down what I did but I could never find where I had written my notes or I would forget to write it down altogether. My camera is always close by and it's easy to take a quick photo and then move on to the next step.

Starfish

The quilt was supposed to be about texture and I had the idea of using wool for the starfish. I didn't want him to be plain orange or yellow and so I needle felted the two colours together for more interest.

Needle felting the wool

Because I couldn't mark the wool, I drew a star fish shape onto tracing paper and cut out the shape. Then I added some beads to give him the bumpy look that they have.

Cutting out the star fish

I wasn't sure how I was going to do the Lion Fish. I got out some silk fabric and was going to applique him but the thought of all those stripes put me off. In desperation I wondered if I could draw him on a piece of white silk with some fabric marking pens.

Drawing the Lion Fish

I used two pens, one of top of the other to get the correct colour, to my surprise it worked very well. I put some fusible web behind the silk and cut carefully around the fish.

Cutting out the Lion Fish

Here is a photo of the Lion Fish on the quilt, he looks so pretty but really they are poisonous and the fish try to avoid them.

Lion Fish

I wanted to get some colour in the top part of the quilt because I knew there would be a lot of colour down the bottom with the coral. I tried some blue silk against the background and thought it would work.

Trying colours

I fused the blue silk fish as well.

I used two colours of an orange/ yellow silk that I had hand dyed a couple of years ago for the yellow fish.

Yellow fish

I wanted the purple fish that were behind the yellow fish to be a matte finish so they would look further back and they are actually painted interfacing.

Here's a photo of the entire quilt.

Under the Sea ©2015 Linda Steele

I am so glad that I took the photos to help me remember what I did.

Bye for now,
Linda