Sea Dragon arrives !

Here is my Sea Dragon. I really enjoyed this challenge. Though clearly, I have not learned how to create a quilt in a week, much less a month...but I am still trying...LOL. Maybe I need to think of the challenges as "exercises" instead of a call to create another wall quilt...

This quilt has hand beading and netting in addition to the batik and cotton fabrics.

Family Tree

I have made a family tree of flower children. Do you know how hard it is to acquire pictures of your children's spouses as small children? HARD! This quilt measures 34x42. The background is strip pieced ,quilted and bound. I then appliqued the tree and sewed all the flowers on. I think there were 43 all together. They include all spouses. Maybe someday I will get all the pictures - I hope. I posted a close up on the yahoo site.

Pat Havey

Also finished something for the Under the Sea Challenge 43. I've been taking a painting on fabric class at Quilt University which has been really fun. I painted some fish which came out really nice - a trout and a salmon. Then I stitched them to add dimension. Shown is the salmon and the trout.

Fast Friday Fabric Challenge 43

The theme of the challenge was underwater. I used an extant wallhanging which incorporates a number of thread embellishment techniques including pintucking on the whale's belly, bobbin work, couching and machine needle lace.

I also created a postcard from scratch which incorporates machine embroidery designs from Embroidery Library, and Lutrador used several different ways.

Merdragon

I am very late on the Fast Friday challenge again this month. But I have been planning to have this fit the Contemporary Quilt dragon Journal quilts, especially as it also included threadwork. I had been thinking to do a dragon based on a seahorse, so this works for the under the sea theme, too. The background print already represents coral, and I am playing with colours to find ways to get the bright fire look using colours other than  normal fire colours.

A simple description this time.

Merdragons are often mistaken for seahorses. However, they serve in the same capacity as watchdogs for the MerPeople. They hid amongst coral that is similar in colour to themselves in the same way that seahorses do. They have the capacity to breath fire under water.

Unlike seahorses, the males do not hatch the eggs in their pouch. Both parents guard the egg sack, taking turns to carry it.

Under the Sea Reflections

April Fools !! AKA …"Under the Sea Reflections"
I got started soon as the Challenge was announced…Today..Thursday before the new Challenge will be given I finished #43…Yes!! The beading...

For the water reflection I matched the flamingo's right side of fabric to the wrong side and sewed the pieces together …used fusible and then fussy cut the plants and birds ironing this to grasses on top and a under-water looking batik on the bottom plus several fish.

My stitching..fancy yarn for underwater plants, stitching around fish, birds and Plants. A couple rows of bobbin stitching with razzle- dazzle thread.  For my non traditional edge finish I used Terry Grant's zig-zag over cording… I used a wider zig-zag width and varigated thread. (I made the edges kind of wavey) I've used this method once before and I like the narrow zig-zag and solid thread.
Great finish for small art quilts!!

In Profile

This is my contribution for the April Challenge. It is small, only 4"x8", but is packed with detail. I used an orange veggie bag, over-stitched with metallic thread for scales, and fused a sheer for the fin. All in all, this was fun. I have been out of the loop for the past few months due to a very demanding teaching schedule and this was just what I needed to get re-motivated.

California Kelp Forest

This is really the underwater piece for the March challenge. I love underwater...being part fish myself, so I posted an older underwater extravaganza while I worked on this one. I wanted to create the flow and texture of the kelp as the currents move it around. the red fish are Garabaldis that live in the kelp. I experimented on the kelp to test different methods of quilting.

Comments and critiques are very welcome because I am doing a series and want to improve.

Carol

Sea Ranch, CA

Golden Sacrifice

We've been a very sick household for the past three weeks, and I haven't even been able to make it into the studio, but I did have a piece I made some time ago that fits this challenge perfectly. The title is Golden Sacrifice, but I just call it "fish". The background is hand painted, the weeds are machine couched yarn and hand beaded. The fish is almost entirely hand done, except the fins that are machine embellished and then the shape has been burnt out of a larger piece of organza. The hardest part was the eye. I even visited the local taxidermist to get a "fish eye", but ended up going to goldwork embroidery techniques and using a tiny piece of padded kid leather.

Three Fishes

This week I've been camping in Asheville NC, and not able to make anything for this challenge. Upon returning today I realized that I have a quilt that I made a few years ago that fits this challenge, and hope you all will enjoy seeing it. I used fused applique and machine embroidered around each fish and around the seaweed. Fabrics from the William Morris collecton were used for the fish. It is really amazing to see the wonderful entries that have been posted for this challenge. Lots of talent in this group!

Under The Sea

I had so much fun doing this.

The fish on top, the sea weed, and treasure chest were machine embroidered

The other fish and the sea horse were thread painted.

The fuzzy things are beads that I made a long time ago just for fun.

Finished off with prairie points.

Challenge 43 - Tidal Pool

This piece called Tidal Pool. The finished size is about 18 inches by 15 inches.

The background is pieced to look like the sand ripples as the tide goes out. The stones are 2 layers of fabric plus batting to create a little dimension. The sea stars are needle felted and beaded to appliqué to the background.

Lisa
In Rainy, Windy Seattle

Postcard from Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles

Orange Cup Corals
5”X 7”

My original plan didn’t work out so in order to save some of the work of the cup corals, I decided to make a snapshot view of them in a postcard format for my challenge. The orange cup corals are made with water soluble stabilizer and thread with glass blobs sewn into the center. I used Peltex™ instead of batting for a more rigid basis to accommodate the extra weight of the glass blobs. Label is in postcard format.

Comments are appreciated.
Thanks,
Pam

Undersea Study

Have not had much time this week. I just read that Virginia Satir wrote "A substitute for time is focus." So here is my response to this month's challenge. A fish underwater on a background that I had started a long time ago for something else. The fish is machine appliqued, a technique I often use. However, this time I did the raw edge applique without using either fusible web or glue. I am reasonably happy with the result and like that it is not so stiff. I have free motion stitched around the fish practicing that feathery stuff using free motion zig zag. Have couched some yarns, some before the applique and some after. They look a bit dull and uninteresting to me. I probaby should have worked harder to get more width and more movement. It is not really complete needs some quilting and binding. When I have more time I might add some bobbin work coral.

Thanks very much for this challenge. It was fun to do and I learned a couple of things from the effort.

Under the Sea

This was a real challenge since the sea is far removed from Nebraska. While cleaning house on Saturday I found a book on the sea I had forgotten I owned! It's at least 20 yrs. old. I found a picture of starfish that I copied and printed onto fabric. They weren't very bright so I used Prismacolor pencils wetted to brighten them. I then found some batik that had ocean like colors to put on a border. I thread painted the background of the rocks out onto the borders to tie it all together. I also printed out the seahorse and the purple coral in the lower right corner. I used the Prismacolor pencils on those, too. I did thread painted over the stars and added pink sea urchins. The purple plant/coral in the lower right was added with thread. My great mistake was trying to thread paint white lace coral coming in from the right. It got lost in the picture. So I redid it, leaving the old underneath by using Sulky Solvy and then just taking it down to give a dimensional appearance. The plants on the left were added to give more depth to the view and a place for the seahorse to hang onto. The edge finish is one from a Sue Benner class. As mentioned by someone else, this type of edge is hard to get to lay flat. I think it works for Sue since she has so much Wunder Under in her quilts making them stiffer. This quilt is 12" x 12".

Old Souls

Old Souls measures 12"x12". The background is a hand dyed by me fabric, overlaid with cottons and organzas to suggest reefs. I added various fibers and a lot of thread painting for corals and seaweeds and the tiniest seed beads I have ever seen on the white coral on the left. A real exercise in patience! I finished this part of the quilt using the 'escape hatch' method a la Melody Johnson. Next I made the turtles, individual parts fused to fusible fleece and thread painted. I actually made 3 pairs of turtles before I got the look I was after. (anyone need some turtles...LOL)

The last step was to assemble the turtles as I appliqued them in place using white silk satin stitch.

Thanks Pam for a really fun challenge!

All comments gratefully received :-)

Cherie

Jelly Ballet

For this challange I decided to try the impossible task of duplicating jelly fish. It was quite a vhallange for sure! The background is hand painted silk. The fish are chiffon over hand dyed silk bodies with thread painted lower body on one fish and lace tenacles on the other one. The bodies are beaded with sequins for the bubbles. I wanted to show the sun rays in the water so I quilted those in. The background is quilted with more jelly fish. The tenacles are all thread painted with Superior Glitter thread. Thannk you for a great challange. All comments are more than welcome.

Pat Havey

Fun Fiber Fish

I've been busy getting ready for surgery tomorrow and the subsequent hospital stay (the important tasks, you know: preparing and packing hand-stitching work and my drawing supplies), so I won't be able to make a new piece for FFFC #43. I do have something on hand, though, that I'm submitting:

This is one of the first mixed-fiber, embellished pieces I ever made when I started working with fabric about 3 years ago. I had painted and quilted the background fabric as a way to practice both, and I hate the thought of wasting anything, so I started covering the fabric up. The piece is 9"h x 11"w.

The fish was stamped with paint onto fabric using a hand-carved stamp, stitched, then cut out as an appique and applied to the background. Beads were stitched over the fish and onto the background fabric as "bubbles."

The seawood is free-form cut fabric strips stitched down the center, and fun-fiber yarns are couched over the bottom area and through the top as seawood.

White coral (left) is made from beads stitched onto the background. Purple coral (right) is thread lace created by stitching on water-soluble stabilizer.

The jellyfish is loose strands of yarn with fabric stitched over the top to hold them down.

The edges are finished with zig-zag stitching; I think I could probably block this to get the bottom to lay straighter, but it just hangs in my craft room to make me happy.

I had done a silk painting and wasn't quite as pleased with it as I though I would be. So off to the fusing basket for the seaweed, shells and sand. Freemotion stitching covered the background and I "cheated" with fabric markers to enhance the fish. Now I'm happy!!!!!

Jane Stricker

Challenge 43 - Under the Sea

This was a great challenge! I love it when I get pushed out of my comfort zone. Although I have done many fishy quilts, I have never tried the "pillowcase" finish. I was amazed at how easy it was, and at how well it turned out.

I fused the fish down, and then did machine embroidery for the scales and texture. I used yarn with sequins and some "hairy" yarn for seaweed. I also cut some wavy strips, and fused them down, but their tops are not attached.

The fish bubbles are holographic sequins, and his eye is a copper washer and a black bead.

I will probably add some more beads, and I'm trying to think of something I can add to the fish, too.

The shape is a trapezoid, and the top measures about 18", the bottom about 16", and the height is 11"

I had so much fun doing this!

Marilyn Foulke

Louisville, KY