I have always been fascinated by sea life, and enjoy watching it on shore and underwater. Several years ago my husband took a class with Kerby Smith at an Empty Spools Conference about photography and photo transfer techniques for quilters. As the conference is held in Asilomar State Park, California, which includes beach areas, Marv took a series of tide pool photographs.

 California Tidepool is my interpretation of elements of several of these photographs arranged to create a “fantasy” California tide pool. This pool includes bull kelp, a hardy seaweed which can grow up to ten inches a day, kombu, another type of kelp, and a sea anemone like creature. The piece incorporates a number of techniques including fabric “created” with Texture Magic™,turned edge and raw edge machine appliqué, photo transfer, machine quilting, and couching. Incorporating all of these elements into a 15” quilt, and working with the thick textured fabric posed a number of technical challenges.

Materials: Cotton batiks, hand-dyed cheese cloth, photographs transferred onto cotton sateen and silk organza, wool yarn, decorative hand-dyed cotton embroidery threads, cotton batting, silk, rayon, polyester and cotton threads.

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