Sea Grass: A New Thread and Coral Reefs (Choosing Colors)

I just received this Sea Grass last week - a new thread by Thread Gatherer that is absolutely "delicious." It is 100% cotton, and looks like tiny little raffia, but very soft. I'm really anxious to work with it and see what possibilities for special effects it has.

The timing is great - not only because of the name, but this new project I'm working on needs all the help it can get, and the colors and texture of this fiber are very interesting.

















I've begun to research plant life growing in the ocean, and am amazed at the diversity - and the colors!. Unbelievable life under water, and especially around the coral reefs. I"ve studied the critters, but never the plants - as I thought it was all just lumped together as "sea weed." A whole new course of study!!! Anyway, I have two of the water droplets ready to embellish, so hope to get started on that tomorrow.
I finished the round one, including the sand - I used Nobuko on the bottom part, as it really needed some texture on which to place a few shells.

A sea fan or two will grow out of the banked up sand on the left, (DMC Memory Thread) so I worked it in basketweave. You can see the difference in the way the light hits the surface of the floss - I used 712 on both areas.




The "needle shaded" blue tear drop will be next - I haven't really decided definitely the colors for the underwater scenery, as there are lots more choices - including the DMC Satin floss I intend to use - these are just kind of getting me started.

The sand under the water on the slender water drop is stitched in T-Stitch. I'm seeing a lot of this stitch worked differently from the way I learned a number of years ago - mine is over two stitches, so covers the canvas - an effect I prefer.

The last photo is the fat water droplet with the concentric circles (Anne's suggestion) drawn to mark the boundaries for the needle blending.





















My first attempt on this piece was to be clever and do a textured stitch on the water, as I see on photographs taken by divers that there is a lot going on down there - but it looked absolutely AWFUL, so I took it out. I think I was just trying to get it done in a hurry so I could move on to the fun stuff. Oh well. Patience. More in a day or two.