Diving Again in the Coral Reef

I'm going to have to put these down, I think, for a few days, as I'm getting a bit tired of them - and seeing little French knot polyps in my sleep.

I finished the blue water drop, and am fairly pleased with it.

My favorite critter on this one is the little yellow urchin, which turned orange around the edges (lower right) when I got to the end, as I was using one of Sharon B's overdyed threads. What a wonderful accident!!

I used several of Sharon's threads on this ornament, as I can pull out wonderful combinations in overdyes and textures from one hank - and can combine them into one thread. The little "furry" dark pink urchins are one of these, as it shaded from this color to much lighter and to almost orange.

The turquoise is two tiny threads in two different fibers, which is very effective. I believe she is out of these hand dyed threads right now, but did say that she might do more in another few months, so don't miss her blog at Pintangle!

My fine internet friend and co-conspirator up on Cape Cod looks at these for me, and is able to see what's missing - and in this case it was the bit of turquoise and bright green, which jazzed it up. It's good to have someone whose artistic eye I trust, and who isn't tired of looking at them.

The second rain drop, with the sea fan, isn't what I wanted exactly, and the more I add, the worse it gets. So I'll leave it alone now - as I'm not about to tear out what I don't like and start over. I'll get it out again tomorrow and look at it - but I do think I might have to go ahead and take off that orange star fish. It's too big. However, if it's going to destroy the little polyps around it, I'll just have to leave it.

I won't point out what else I don't like here or my mistakes/errors in judgment.

I had considered using Satin floss for the seaweed, but didn't want to overpower the fan, and used Thread Gatherer's "Sea Grass." How appropriate the name!! (also the color) I'm going to leave this project alone for a day or two, and then finish one more I'm working on.