Under the Sea

I was absolutely thrilled to hear the news that my Under the Sea quilt had won 2nd prize in the World of Textures competition. The competition was held at the Berry Patchwork Retreat and Quilt Show, in Berry NSW, Australia.

Under the Sea ©2015 Linda Steele

I had known about the competition for ages and I had no inspiration and no time while minding Savannah, my little granddaughter. One day as I was watching her play with her toys I thought about creating texture with coral and using my embroidery skills from all the crazy quilting I have done over the years. Once I had the theme lots of ideas started coming to me.

I am usually tired at night after a day with Savannah but I do have the weekends free and just by chance the school holidays were coming up. My daughter is a school teacher so I get the school holidays off.

I worked every spare minute. I even took my little bits of coral away with me when we went to Queensland for a week.

I didn't draw up any pattern, I just made it up as I went along. It was very free and I really enjoyed making it.

Lion Fish

I had thought about making an Under Sea quilt before but I never got inspired enough to actually do it, although I have done some underwater crazy blocks before and always enjoyed making them.

Star Fish

I used many different fabrics and materials. In fact I had been collecting all sorts of fancy threads and shiny fabrics over the years to use 'one day'. That day finally came and out came the boxes, I had stuff everywhere.

Bottom left of Quilt

I was making all sorts of different textures, none of them very realistic and not all of them very successful but I was really pushed for time and hardly had time to think.

Bottom right of quilt

There were times near the end that I didn't think that I would be able to pull it all together and make that coral work with one another. That's where the french knots came in very handy.

There was a size requirement of 100cm (39") high and only 40cm (16") wide, so it was a long and narrow quilt. I only just got it finished in time, I faced the quilt, photographed it and sent it off to Berry express post to get it in before the deadline.

To actually finish the quilt and get a prize for it was icing on the cake especially as I have never entered an Art Quilt competition before. I have made plenty of art quilts but never entered them anywhere.

Bye for now,
Linda