Under the Sea

In one of my bees, Piece Bee with You, the theme for this month is Under the Sea.  It is a bee based on paper piecing, which is one of my favorite techniques.  This block is my contribution to the theme.  The fish pattern is from Shirley Liby's Paper Piecing Patterns, which is a set of books that I bought at a quilt show years ago.  I never thought I would use it because the patterns tend to be fairly small in size, but I thought it would be an interesting resource. 

I'm happy that I finally have a reason to use it.  The seaweed block is a pattern that I designed.

A close-up of the fish:

A close-up of the seaweed:

The block is made from stash fabric, and the background is an organic fabric by Kaufman that I thought was perfect for water.

I also like to design siggy blocks that match the blocks.  This is the siggy block for Under the Sea:

I love that these bees have me work on different patterns that I wouldn't otherwise.  It's definitely been broadening my quilting horizons and it's been fun!