Candji's UTS Block

Candji's Under the Sea crazy quilt block is the last of our round robin blocks for me to work on. I'm running a little late due to several days with sinus crud this past month, and the loss of electricity for a couple of days due to the tornado. Candji graciously let me take a couple of extra weeks to complete my work! The block was fun to stitch on and here are some photos!

The block was worked on by Darlene D. of Owosso, MI; Deloris D. of Columbia City, IN; and Jacque S. of Gordon, NE; before I received it. And these ladies did such a wonderful job that it was a joy to follow them! Candji also added a lot of interest to her basic block by using fabrics with textures in them. I stitched the bottom middle section mostly..and added some bibs and pieces elsewhere to balance the entire project. One easy step was to include some applique "critters". I had a bit of cotton fabric with a dolphin, octopus, and sea turtle...so these were cut out and fused/sewn in place.

After stitching some lace, partial lace, and fibers into place...I added beaded plants. These were created by loading seed bead onto wire...twisting the ends to keep the beads from falling off...and bending the wire around a pencil to help it curl in a spiral. If you do this, leave about a quarter of an inch on the wire without any beads...so it will bend and not bread the beads. Can you see the spirals?

There are several painted or inked charms on the block. Here are some of the inked fish...the bottom left and right are those I added in this space. Brass charms that have been inked are gorgeous!

I also added some plant life by the sea turtle appliqued down. The plant was created with pink/purple varigated EdMar threads in super long cast-on stitch...that twisted nicely. On either side is a piece of DMC Color Infusions Memory Thread in dark olive green. This is actually not thread...but super thin wire, coated and wrapped in thread. I wrapped a piece about two foot long around a large doll needle to get the coils...and then couched it down. The base of the plant was covered with a snippet of lace for another plant illusion.

Lastly, here is a wire and seed bead fish. It was created and then couched into place. The body is thin and flexible beading wire. The fins were created with a little thicker wire, bend into shape, and then all was wired together. 

Hope these photos give you lot's of stitching and embellishing ideas for your own Under the Sea kind of block!