Patsy Thompson's book, Feather Adventures, is the most comprehensive book I've seen on feathers. I really like the name for some reason....
Her book is great, with plenty of examples and tips in a variety of styles. But the best help in learning to do feathers was to just keep drawing them! Draw them until your hands can't help but make smooth feather plumes.
My attempt at a traditional feather from the video above, closely cropped to leave out the ugliest bits.....
My back tracked feather above, and the two non-backtracked styles (regular and hooked) below.
And my bump-back (or bump-bump) feather.
I finished up my tiny feather fill this past weekend. My hands want to cramp up just at the thought of it. I took a video and will post it later in the week. Now it goes into the bin of unbound quilts.
In the pic below, notice that my stitch length is getting too long for these feathers. The fabric starts to ripple where lines of stitching are running parallel. this can happen with all types of designs when stitch legth gets too long, but it shows up in feathers easily.
I had to restitch that so-called traditional feather from the video. Just to make sure I could. It's....meh.
Then I moved on to a fun feather to help counteract the tenseness I felt as I quilted that traditional one.
So I hope to see some feathery goodness from you this week! If you are new to feathers, show us a drawing if you prefer. Make sure you don't compare your beginning to someone else's 'middle'.
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 1
Week 3
Week 4
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