I had just finished phase 4 goldwork (Kara-hana) and was looking for a practice piece for the different techniques involved. At the same time my daughter in-law had just finished setting up a seahorse fish tank at her house with 2 seahorses. When I saw a picture of a cross stitch design with seahorses, the idea just grew from there. It took ages to work out how to do the reeds in the foreground of the goldwork. I asked around for different ideas. After I finished the cords, I finally realized I could do the same principle as the padded cord. Instead of doing a diagonal layer, I chose a fly stitch for the vein line it created.