Showing posts with label Under The Sea. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Under The Sea. Show all posts

Saturday, May 14, 2011

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!










Photobucket

Friday, May 13, 2011

Oh look what I just received!




The CQI round robin swap...Under The Sea is coming to an end...and the blocks are finding their way home.
Look at how gorgeous my block is; the ladies did a wonderful job on it! (I did not stitch any of this...but I'm lucky enough to now own it! LOL!)



Here are some closeups so you can see the detail. Isn't the mermaid so neat, she reminds me of a sea urchin....



The little lace fish are actually lace petals from a sun-flower...how creative!



The wide ribbon is not something that I would have considered...but I'm so loving it with the seaweed and beads...and I'll be using the idea in future seascape blocks!



And check out this little scene! I love the ribbon work...and will be "borrowing" this little stitching idea too!



The stitching is by Candj B. of Kent, Ohio; Darlene D. of Owosso, Michigan; Deloris D. of Columbia City, Indiana; and Jacque S. of Gordon, Nebraska. Thanks ladies, the block is gorgeous!
Photobucket

Monday, March 21, 2011

Under the Sea in the mail...

My stitching is complete, and the block is on it's way to Candji to finish up. Here is how it looks after my round was done.
And here is close up view of just my portion.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

More Under The Sea

The past couple of days, I've been working on another UTS block in the round robin series. And the work done before me is wonderful...let me show you. Here is a beautiful fish that Deloris created on her embroidery machine. She makes me want to go buy a new sewing/embroidery machine myself! Isn't her work just gorgeous!
Plus, on the other side of this rectangle block...Jacque has placed this stunning mermaid and stitching! And the little dimensional felted fish is so cute!
Well, it is certainly a little daunting to follow this pair of creative stitcher's! I went on the hunt through my stash for some pretty and textural fibers. I found a piece of dyed cheese cloth and these cute little flowers. They were white and I dry brushed them with some alcohol inks.
You know I had to add some feather stitch plants since there weren't much there yet! This time I decided to use some of the rayon I have from EdMar for my Brazilian Embroidery because the colors are so vibrant.
Beads and a family of fish...and I'm almost done! These brass fish are painted with fingernail polish. When completely dry, I used some color markers on them...and then rubbed most of that off with an alcohol wipe so only the color is in the "creases".
I'll show you the finished block in a couple of days as I'm stitching away!