Our February challenge was really awesome - feathers by Diane Gaudynski. I have tried many different ways of stitching feathers and this was a keeper! Thank you Diane, your pictures describing "how to" were excellent and simple to follow. As before, I did a lot of practicing on paper first to get the flow of the design well and truly embedded. Here is one of my first pages.
Then came the practice sandwich, in fact many sandwiches! I used a Schmetz Quilting Needle size 75/11. The red and pink examples are done with Seralon thread which is cotton and I think unique to South Africa as I have not seen anyone mention it before. For the cream feathers I used Colorful Embroidery thread. This was superb and produced beautiful feathers. I will continue to use only this thread for FMQ.
Below is part of a sampler that I stitched by hand about 15 years ago and am now using as my final practice piece before stitching on my prepared FMQ quilt. The centre is stippled and I've stitched feathers around the pieced outside of the block.
Here is my final effort. I'm quite pleased with it but feel that my "echoing" needs a bit more practice and that will surely come as I intend using feathers regularly in my quilting.
These two close-ups show a bit more detail.
Thank you Diane for this tutorial. I really loooved it!!
Your feathers are lovely. Beautiful stitching so smooth and even. I love your echo stitching makes the feathers just puff up! Bravo..very well done!
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely gorgeous quilting! I, too, loved Diane's tutorial. She made it easy to understand. Now I just have a lot more practicing to do while you get to move on to another project! ~Jeanne
ReplyDeleteYour quilting looks great! I love what the echoing does to the plume.
ReplyDeleteYour feathers are fabulous. I only hope mine will turn out as well. I'm still practicing.
ReplyDeleteHi Carolyn from your newest follower. Your feathers are really good - your plumes are nice and fat and they have a nice flow to them :)
ReplyDeleteThank you all for your encouraging comments. I appreciate every one of them.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful feathers!
ReplyDeleteHi Carolyn . I hope you don't mind but I've nominated your blog for a Liebster Award.
ReplyDeletehttp://rhianontaylor.blogspot.com/2012/02/leibster-award.html
wow! takes me all my time to THINK about feathers never mind draw or sew!! Good work xx
ReplyDeleteI see you're stitching with a fabulous Bernina - absolutely gorgeous work - thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeletesure looks like you have this one down. the echoing sure sets off the feathers, great job
ReplyDeletein stitches
annette
your feathers are great.
ReplyDeleteThank you all!
ReplyDeleteYour feathers are GORGEOUS!
ReplyDeleteYour feathers are simply beautiful! This month's challenge is much more my speed! I loved trying the feathers but I have much improvement to make on them. Any tips for me??
ReplyDeleteRosemary, all I can say is it's practice, practice, practice!! And then some more. Thank you for your compliment. I had a look at yours and I think they are great! Love your scarf too....
ReplyDeleteThank you, Carolyn! You are so kind! I know practice is the answer. I just have to make myself actually do it! Thank you for the follow! I look forward to looking at your blog and all your updates!
ReplyDeleteYour machine quilting is beautiful!!! I wish I could do that, but it isn't in me~ I've tried!
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