The Starfish Spoke to Me

 I'm flying back from a quick trip to the Sarasota area of Florida after spending three days visiting friends. A few days away from snow and cold temperatures was a special gift.

For my plane travel and time relaxing on the patio I brought one of the blocks for the Coral Reef Wall Quilt to work on. I have threads, needles, kids scissors (due to security!) and the block of beautiful blue felted wool. I made sure all my pieces were fused on before I left early Sunday morning. While on the flight down I was able to whip stitch all the shapes in place. That's the point I get excited about completing.

While driving from the airport we went over a few bridges and the water looked great.
We continued through the center of town and an art show was taking place on the circle and I saw booths of paintings, photographs, and sculptures. I realized that the people there are very interested in the environment that surrounds them as much as those of us in Ohio enjoy the different seasonal changes in the fall colors, pine trees in winter and my favorite, my flowers in the summer. The images were of course related to the ocean and tropical plant life and were of high quality.

We settled in, had a great lunch at a local restaurant but as we walked in I saw an aquarium . Swimming in that tank were the angelfish I'm including in the Reef Quilt plus other recognizable reef objects. I was truly in Florida sunshine and all it offers.

Have you ever started a project and had an excitement for the subjects in it but kind of wonder what were you thinking when you began? I was feeling that way a bit looking out my sewing room window at a foot of snow and wearing my wool socks and warm clothes. You get the point.

I decided to create the Coral Reef after a visit with family to the Monterrey Aquarium and a hundred photographs of anemones, jellyfish, beautifully colored fish and starfish. I was psyched and thought about how my grandchildren love seeing the clown fish at the Cleveland Zoo.

So there I was in Florida with my feet in the cold ocean only to realize that the Ocean and its creatures are a very worthy subject for my quilt and how lucky I am to have had the chance in the past to snorkel in a coral reef.

The next morning my friend took me to one of her favorite shops in the Sarasota area. It really had a greet selection of fabrics, a wonderful classroom space and a wool section. I picked out a few quarter yard pieces and spoke with the owner about my patterns. She shared some of her thoughts about my work. In doing so she made a comment about incorporating regional themes into the pieces. I realized, yes maybe the Coral Reef piece would catch the eye of a Florida quilter or perhaps some other ideas I came up with will! It's always good to get comments from others in your field, digest the information and keep on going....so here I go again....

I always think , let the fun decisions begin! What colors and what stitches speak to me and how will they work with the other blocks to make it unified? I happily choose the color to stem stitch around the Coral and got that done the first evening after dinner. I was on my way!

The sunshine is coming through the plane window and I would like to add more to the Reef but it seems that I just need some other colors of thread. Good thing I'm headed home to my colorful thread collection and no outside gardening distractions. Spring can wait while I complete the Coral Reef!!!