Endangered Species with Aurifil

Have you seen the creativity of my fellow Island Batik Ambassadors this month? They are amazing as they bring each one of the Aurifil Endangered Species creatures to life. Art quilting is not my thing but I’m always up for a challenge and have learned a lot by seeing what others do.

Threads supplied by Aurifil for the challenge

My challenge was the Whale Shark. I didn’t know anything about a whale shark so here are some of the facts I learned:

A whale shark is know as the “gentle giant” of the sea.

It is the largest fish in the sea, called a whale solely because of it’s size, the size of a school bus, the largest recorded being 62 feet long!

Tropical and warm temperature seas are where whale sharks live.

With 300 rows of tiny teeth (3,000 of them) and up to a five foot wide mouth, a whale shark feeds on plankton and small fish, it is not a threat to humans.

I also learned that the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta has a whale shark that you can swim with. Sounds like a fun future trip. I promise pictures when I go… but swim with it? … I’m not sure.

I drew my whale shark on Steam a Seam 2 paper which I placed on Island Batik Bluebird fabric and cut it out, adding a little darker fabric (Cobalt solid) for shading. I also cut out a couple of circles of Marble Storm and Dandelion-Crumbs for interest, then placed them on Almond for my background fabric.

When I was happy with the placement, I took my project to my ironing surface and pressed the fabrics, making the Steam a Seam to bond permanently . For perspective, I added a solid Yellow kayak, using the Derwent Intense Pencils (thank you, IBA SaIly Manke) to shade and add the paddles and person in the kayak. Next I layered my top with with Fusible Hobbs batting and another layer of almond for the backing.

Using a Schmetz Microtex needle I took my time to play with those beautiful Aurifil threads to shade and create texture. I used the dark blue # 2784 on the blue circle, #2310 on the tan circle, the light blue #2770 for the whale shark’s spots, and the medium #2735 for the water.