Finally finished my Laura Heine Elba seahorse collage quilt. If you look closely you should be able to spot some sea creatures hidden in his body. 
This quilt was very far outside my comfort zone. It was an interesting experience and I "may" do another collage quilt somewhere down the line if I ever need to challenge myself again.
I've never named my quilts but have decided this one is called "Indecision".
1) Seahorse colors. I had no idea what I wanted to do other than the fact that I wanted him to be cheerful and bright. He went through MANY MANY color changes - especially that lower fin/wing. When I collected fabrics I picked up pinks, reds, oranges, yellows, blues, greens, teals. PLENTY of variety to do another collage quilt of some sort.
2) His eye - I must have auditioned 50 flowers for his eye. I'm not kidding. And some of those flowers I auditioned multiple times. I think this one works well and I like the play of the white and black eye off the black and white spine.
3) Background.
- When I first started collecting fabric for this seahorse I purchased some fun fish fabric that I adored and wanted to use as the background. As soon as he was finished and I layered him on top of the fish fabric I knew it was not meant to be. Too distracting and I spent way too much time on this seahorse for him not to be the star of the quilt.
- Bought another background fabric that I thought would be "perfect" when I saw it in the quilt shop. More subdued with some sparkly stuff that could be cool to represent water. Nope - too blah and sucked the pizazz out of the seahorse. Set fabric aside for a different project.
- I want to get this DONE. Poked around in my stash and found the ombre fabric. It's a little too pinkish and bright in the photo but in person looks great. Why didn't I poke around in my stashBEFORE I bought 2 yards of other fabric. Sigh.
4) Borders.
I love that fish fabric - I'll use it to make borders even though I generally don't do borders. Sewed on 4" borders. Hmm...too wide. Trim borders down to 2.5" wide. Hmm...trying too hard to force fish fabric to work with seahorse. Took borders off.
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