Thursday, July 10, 2014

Free Motion Feathers




Feathers are being showcased this month over at Amy's Free Motion Quilting Adventures. I have practiced feathers much more than actually used them on a quilt. I do have a few examples. This photo is from Blogger's BOM from a few years ago. I drew in the spine with a washable marker but quilted the feather free hand. I thought it looked pretty good for my first time!

 
 
 
This photo is from a quilt I designed. The feather is quite similar to the BOM feather.  I followed the same technique where I drew in the spine. I was able to stitch these feathers quite quickly after doing a few. (Many!!)

 

This is from the same quilt but this feather is the mirror image of the one above. It was actually a little different to quilt. The direction of the spine changed the way I stitched the feather. They both look very similar.

My next goal is to quilt feathers in a border. I'm a little concerned about how to space them out. I also have to decide if the feathers should be curved, straight, etc. So many decisions to make! That will be my next challenge.

I'm linking up over at Amy's blog. Hope you check it out!


8 comments:

  1. As someone who has been trying machine quilting lately, I am even more impressed with your work.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Your feathers look nice. You should have no problem quilting them into your borders...have you used one of those curvable rulers. They are great if you want to get a bit of a gentle wavy sort of feather in the border.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think I do have one of those rulers. I think I just have to take the plunge and do it!!

      Delete
  3. You will be just fine in the borders. I do what Karin described and use a curvable/bendable ruler and mark with an air erase marker then I stitch the marked line all around the perimeter. I then stitch one side of the continuous feather then the other. You get into a rhythm pretty quickly and it sure is fun!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You make it sound easy! I'm going to try it on the quilt I'm working on. I'm almost done quilting the background. Border is next!

      Delete
  4. Your feathers are great. I see no reason why you'll have any trouble with a border full of feathers. Make sure your feathers fit your border (or vice versa) not too thin not too fat. Thanks for linking up!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm going to try them out soon. I'm finishing up quilting the background and then I'll quilt the border. Thanks for visiting my blog!

      Delete

Alaska and Ruler Work

 The 4th row for Alaska is ready to be sewn to the rest of the quilt. I saw a picture of Alaska online that included a pieced border using o...