Quiltingboard Forums - Seahorse Collage Quilt

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. http://forum.missouriquiltco.com/ima...n_bigsmile.gif 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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