Quilting Inspiration #3

A friend asked me to quilt this beauty with a water theme.  For a little inspiration I looked to the fabric in the quilt.

This fabric had wonderful seaweed and fish on it, so I decided that is the look I was going for.

This is my version of seaweed on the dark outer border.  I placed a wavy vein and then tried to place random leaves coming off.  The good thing about seaweed is that the leaves don't have be the same size, shape or even going in the same direction.

The inner border received some waves.

The body of the quilt has waves and various fish all over.  I used an older pantograph from Linda Taylor to stitch the fish.  I quilted waves till I felt I needed a fish, went to the other side of my Longarm, turned on my laser light and quilted a fish.  For those of you that don't have a longarm, try tracing the design onto a light weight paper such as Golden Threads.  Pin the paper to your quilt, quilt through the paper, then tear the paper away.

I checked Linda's website and couldn't find the Pantograph.  However, click here to check out some of her other great patterns.  As a rule, I don't do pantographs.  However, I often used bits of them, as in this quilt.  When I am stuck for a design idea, I look through several web pages of pantographs to come up with an idea.  I practice a little on paper to get the design right, then free hand it on my machine.

Happy Quilting!