Fishy

Published on by bramangirlsquilt

It all started with a discussion that my husband’s friend, Mark needed a quilted wallhanging in this office to help with noise reduction. This is the end results, Fishy.

Hanging in Mark’s office.

So with that first discussion I had fishing as the inspiration. I started by gathering some green fabrics, okay lots of green fabrics. Because when doing collage quilting I use small pieces of many different fabrics. Then I drew a picture of one fish.

First fish was this walleye. My husband and Mark have been going to Canada for years walleye fishing.

I made my first fish on my silicone mat. Ironed it together and started thinking about the background I’d use.

I hadn’t figured out the background yet, but knew the fish would be in water, so I decided to make a log for the bottom of the lake/river. I started on my little silicone mat again, which ended up to be a little too small.

That one walleye seemed a bit lonely so I drew a pike and made him up too.

By this time I had bought some batik fabrics I thought might work for the background. So I auditioned them.

Background chosen, now to start the layout. Then I decided to make a few lily pads. But they would be from the viewpoint of the bottom of the lake with tails hanging down.

If I’m making lily pads, I might as well make some little bass swimming around them.

Quilt top finally done. The details include the weeds I fussy cut, a few stones, a can and a wine bottle. I admit no bottle would still have the label on it after sitting on a lake bottom. But this is a shout out to my favorite wine made here in Michigan by Leelanau Cellars.

After quilting and binding, I got two of my husbands lures and added them to the log. I hand stitched the line that had broke when the lures got caught.

I gave it to Mark on Thursday evening and he had it hung up in his office Friday morning.