From the Vault - Seaweed Quilt

Strictly speaking, this isn't a vault quilt, since it didn't come out of a plastic tub in the basement.  I've had it hanging at home or at work almost nonstop since I made it in March 2008.  But it dates pre-blog, so maybe that's the new definition of vault.

 

Seaweed Quilt is 35 x 47 inches.  I bought the center fabric at Stitcher's Crossing in 2007and didn't want to cut it, so I added pieced borders and embellishments.  This was the only quilt where I used folded borders, which you can see on the left and right edges of the seaweed fabric.  You can slip your fingers behind the fold and lift it up.

Here's a closeup of a fish I appliqued, emerging from the fold.  I free motioned around all the seaweed and scattered seed beads across the top to simulate bubbles.

Turquoise and citron eyelash yarn loop around (fake) mother-of-pearl beads.  On the left you can see more of the folded border.

This is the type of quilting I did in the borders.  It looks like variegated thread, but it's not.  I did multiple passes with different colored thread.  It was a lot of threading and rethreading, but I was happy with how it turned out.

Here's a detail from the upper right where you see a little of everything: seaweed free motion quilting in the border, "real" seaweed yarn, and the folded border on the right.

This has put me in a fish mood.  Come back for more fish posts this week, starting tomorrow!