Finally showing some progress!

This is how my WiP looks now. Since my last post about it, I touched up the ink and paint on the new background, washed out the resist, basted the whole cloth to the batting, and made a purple sea fan and some brain coral. It's coming along! Right now everything looks like it's floating a bit, because I haven't stitched anything down yet. I want to make sure of placement before I do that. I'll also add more hand-stitched detail to look like sand or coral in the foreground and background.

I was originally thinking I'd only make the central elkhorn coral and some fish, but then decided the elkhorn coral needed to be bigger, or it needed some additional elements. I wasn't about to enlarge and redo that coral I worked so hard on, so I decided on adding more coral. I've always loved those purple sea fans, especially the way they sway with the movement of the waves, so I chose to add some. Here is a bit of a detail shot. How do you like the yellow-tail snapper? I found some prismatic ribbon that I used for his silver scales.

And here is a detail of some brain coral. I chose a pale yellow spotted fabric and chain-stitched curvy lines all over it. Then I layered it with batting and free-motioned with the machine around the hand stitching. I want to add a smaller one to the left of this one and overlapping it. I may also put in some of those sea urchins that were everywhere. Then I need to add a bunch more fish. I would love to get this finished by June 15th, to submit it to Art Quilts: Lowell in MA, but I really would have to make much faster progress. Everything seems to take so long!