Let's talk feathers.

Not too long ago that word inspired fear and trembling in me. Now I love to apply them to quilts whenever I can.

This little "Crazy Ann" quilt received it's feather border and is now bound and ready to send off to my friend.

Small quilt finish #40 for this year.

Even though this is not my preference in colors, I like it much better than I thought I would.

Then there is the basket wall hanging made from scraps of one of my Mom's quilts.

I hadn't quite finished the ditch stitching, but it was crying for feathers. The feathered wreaths in the black squares are a little hard to see. I used a stencil and pounce pad to mark those.

 On the setting triangle feathers I just mark a spine using a curved ruler, and wing it from there (pun intended).

Feathers were my nemesis when I started free motion quilting and now I enjoy them and look for places to use them. My first venture into free motion quilting was a class I took in October 2011. I didn't try feathers for a few weeks and the attempts were so discouraging that I threw them away. Wish I had kept them so we could have a good laugh. But if you are struggling with feathers, maybe this will give you hope.

This was one of my early feather attempts. I just couldn't figure out how to get the feathers to emerge gracefully from the spine.

Four months after I began my struggle to machine quilt I was involved in the SewCalGal (now QuiltShopGal) free motion quilt challenge of 2012, and February's challenge was feathers.
This is what I finally created in February of 2012. Not exactly a graceful, flowy piece. : )

 So if you are feather challenged as I was, know that it really does boil down to practice. I found the December border challenge from Patsy Thompson In SewCalGal's 2012 FMQ challenge really helped me get the feel for the flow of feathers. 

Even though the challenge was about border designs, Patsy uses a lot of feathers in her borders and this inspired me. I followed some of her feathered border designs and practiced until it clicked. 

 Not perfect, but a definite improvement! And it just kept getting easier from there on out.

There are only two or three feather designs with which I am comfortable. I want to branch out and try some new ones. 
What is your favorite style of feather? And do you quilt it yourself, or does someone else do your quilting for you?

Until next time,
Janet O.