Under The Sea Fantasy - Silk Fusion

My dear hubby and I got back from Key West 2 weeks ago. Yep had a fabulous vacation. I was very inspired and had always wanted to do an undersea piece so I did it in silk fusion over Tissuetex. Boy shells were very inexpensive to buy there, already holed for beading; as opposed to my local bead shop where they are $.25 each. So here's a couple pics of what I made. The first 3 pics are of the entire piece -- the first one on the window so you can see the fibers, stitching and translucence. The 2nd pic is semi-translucent and the 3rd pic has no lighting from underneath...only on top.

translucent

semi-translucent

matte

These next 3 pics show details of the corners:

left bottom

right bottom

right top

Here's how I made it in brief:
- I dye-painted a sheet of Tissuetex for the back - for hanging strength
- I made silk paper (silk fusion) out of many different kinds of dyed silk and banana fiber
- When dry I free-motion stitched wavy and circular patterns across the piece
- I also made cording from silk and other materials and stitched this down
- I machine embroidered many elements onto water-soluble backing. When the stabilizer was dissolved and the items were dry, I stitched them into the picture with monofiliment thread. Included are the clown fish, the two koi together, 3 differently colored pieces of coral, fisherman's netting, a starfish, a little colorful fish, a seahorse, and my favorite -- a school of jellyfish.
- I finished it off with shells, beads, and some hand embroidery with silk thread.

It was an entire week's work, but worth it. Hope you like it -- I sure do!