Free Motion Quilting a Tiny Feather Filler

It's Wednesday, when it seems like a good time to share a WIP, work-in-progress. I'm working on finishing the piece I used last month for the ruler-based designs from Free Motion Monday.
 

First I added a few clamshells to the opposite side to balance the composition. First some simple ones with swags, then tiny clams, followed by some longer clamshells and swirls, then finished with more teardrops between the last row to add some continuity to the piece.

Whose idea was it to finish it off with these insanely tiny feathers? Mine. Crazy, I tell you. I blame the excitement of having this month's Free Motion Monday focusing on feathers.

I was inspired by Karen McTavish's scroll McTavishing method, and applied it to making my feather spines.

So first I filled in the whole space with scrolls first. They'll serve as my feather spines and also help manage the fullness of my wool batting. Then I go back in and feather the jimmy-dickens out of them.

We've had some lovely example of feathers shared onto Monday's first feather series, so go check them out if you haven't done so.

Now, I'm going back to my tiny feathers. Have you chosen a tiny, dense, or complicated design before and regretted it for its time requirement? Tell me about it in the comments.

Free Motion Monday Quilting Adventure: Feathers

It's a new month which means there's a new focus for the weekly link party here for free motion quilting. I'm excited and a bit scared to showcase feathers for July.

There is so much diversity in styles and teaching of this much-loved design that I'm not sure I can do it justice!

I'm going to start us off with a video overview of feathers. I just don't know that I can put into written word all the variations and methods of making feathers. Below is an older video on me making a feather.

One thing I do know is that there should be a lot of participation from all of you in this linky this month. Most of us have done feathers in our quilts or aspire to do them, so share with us all. If you are new to feathers, or even to free motion quilting, the best advice I can give you is to practice, practice, practice and to doodle quilting designs as much as possible.

I'm finishing off my grid-based design sampler with feathers. Insanely small feathers. Yes, that is a pin for scale.

 My favorite feathers that I've stitched so far in my quilty life are either the feathers on the farm quilt or the feathers in the waves of my Poured Out 2 quilt.

Next week I'll be posting stitched out versions of the feathers in the above video and possibly some video of that work. I am so glad I can stitch them better than I can draw them! It took 5 takes before I was satisfied with the above video. I rarely re-shoot video, so that's saying something!

This post was once part of a link party that has long ended and is no longer available. But you can visit the month long series.

Week 2
Week 3
Week 4

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Weekend Quilting Wonder

Just in case you've got a little extra downtime this weekend and are online looking for quilty inspiration:

Free motion quilting sites for domestic sewing machines seem to be a bit filler heavy, so if you want some great ideas on how to quilt your pieced quilts, look to the long arm quilters! Here are some talented ones:

Bethanne Nemish at White Arbor Quilting does amazing work on all types of quilts. See her quilting gallery and also her own show quilts.

It seems I'm especially fond of quilters with 3 children, as are the 3 following quilters- especially if quilting was a sanity aid during the younger years!

Margaret Gunn is doing ruler work and McTavishing in this quilt. Here's some beautiful work on a customer's Washington Medallion.

One of my blog readers is an excellent long arm quilter for hire: Michelle at Mmm Quilts.

Angela Huffman of Quilted Joy is an overachiever. Not only is she a fabulous long arm quilter, business woman, hosting quilting classes by Karen McTavish, but she had her three kids all at once!

Me? I'm not doing much quilting right now, just some necessary paper pushing, organizing, and cleaning done. But I'll be working on July's Free Motion Monday series on feathers over the weekend.

Now there's some serious eye candy to be seen from all over at Quilt Inspiration!

LuAnn Kessi's Sketchbook is always full of ideas and fun.

Now, just because I featured some long arm quilters, do not think you need a long arm to create your own beautiful quilts! As domestic machine or sit-down long arm quilters, one of our strengths is the intricate detailed work we can do. But this can be a weakness when it comes to bed quilts as we can get too dense with fillers. So enjoy these sites and get some quilting in this weekend.

Today is the celebration of America's Independence Day, and we're having a cookout on my wonderful porch, followed by fireworks out at the lake. Happy Fourth of July!

PS- Make sure to respect the various sites' wishes when it comes to their images.

Free Motion Quilting with Rulers- an Update

I've had two emails recently that made me decide to do a little update on using the Janome "ruler toe" for free motion quilting in conjunction with long arm rulers on my sewing machine.

This is one half of the Janome Frame Quilting Feet Set part #767-434-005. Yes, it's labeled as for the 1600P, and the open toe foot in the package is useless for my purposes (though great if you are using it on  frame, its intended purpose).

I put an email in to Janome a while back, and I heard back from Alison Newman, Janome Educator at Janome-America and she has checked with their service people and given a big thumbs up to the use of this toe with the convertible free motion feet sets, whether the low (202002004), high (202001003), or 1600 version (767433004).

This was great to hear as a few readers had said their dealers told them they couldn't use it with their machines, only the 1600.

I've been playing around with some new rulers from Top Anchor Quilting Tools, as you can see in the above pictures. Making stars without marking is perfect right before Independence Day! These look like they'd be cool for long arm quilting on a frame and I'm seeing if they'd be good for those of us who move our quilts instead of our machines. More on them in a future post.