AlvaStitcher

I am trying to build up my courage to quilt feathers in a border of a top and have a question. When quilting a long border, either top, bottom or sides, do you make a loooong center vein and then go back and quilt in all the humps (LOL, for lack of a better explanation) or do you break up the feathers and do several on the length of the border? If you do several, do you connect them in any way or do they just float there by themselves? Thanks for your help. I'm afraid I really need more help than any of you can offer, but that is a personal problem. LOL

Pagzz

This is a free video from Patsy Thompson's site which might help you. http://www.patsythompsondesigns.com/...#FEATHERBORDER

Bobbielinks

I like to make one continuous loooong vine all the way around the quilt, then go back and stitch in the feathers along one side of the vine, until I get back to my starting point, then stitch the feathers along the other side of the vine. Of course, I have already Sid the borders and either quilted the or basted the inner part of the quilt to avoid puckers in the backing.

AlvaStitcher

Peggy, Wow! Thanks for the video lead. Her feather work is awesome. I can tell that I need lots more practice.

PaperPrincess

I do one long center line along the entire border, then go back and do the feathers themselves.

ManiacQuilter2

To do continuous feathers, you will need to do some overlapping. You might try using a stencil to practice FMQ feathers so you can work up a rhythm. It is one less thing you will need to worry about.

Tothill

Wow great videos.

Thank you for sharing the link.

Bree123

Definitely do the spine first. Then you can either break thread & go back to beginning, echo or stitch backwards down your spine to get back to the beginning to do feathers, or if you are especially talented, you can quilt the feathers beautifully whether going up or down the spine (I'm not there yet).

If the free videos help you enough, definitely start with them. I could never make heads or tails of how to quilt feathers until I watched an iQuilt class with Green Fairy Quilter (Judi Madsen). I liked the class so much after being given free access to the beta version for nearly 2 months that I actually paid to buy the regular version of it so I could refer back to it over & over again. https://www.iquilt.com/course/quilti...-a-difference/

quiltingshorttimer

AlvaStitcher--If you plan to do one continuous feather, I suggest you get a practice piece to work on and try those turns around the corners! I frankly find that when I do continuous feathers, to keep them consistent, I do the center part of the quilt first, then have to do the borders all at once--which means I'm doing a lot of rolling back and forth. For that reason I sometimes will do a motif in the center of all sides and the corners, then feather between.

Also, I find that when I have a stitched in spine, I tend to get the spines too "heavy"--so I'll mark a spine with chalk, then just start the feathers and go to end. then I break the thread and go back to the start and feather the other side--the way they lay together almost creates a "spine" but I don't get the thread build-up. A friend who does amazing feathers uses this method and while I still need a lot of practice, it sure works better for me.

bjchad

You can do either depending on what you want to do. On a quilt with sashing you could do a feather the length of each block as separate feathers and it would look good. You can feather out from the corners to the center of each side. You can feather out from the center of each side to the corners. You could do sets of two feathers, one in each direction with a teardrop or circle where they join and use that motif several times along the border. The possibilities are endless.
Look around on YouTube for examples, Jamie Wallen has some good info, Angela Walters has a whole crafty class on feathers. You've already looked into Patsy Thompson who is awesome.
Most of all, enjoy. Feathers look great in borders no matter how you decide to do them. Can you tell feathers are my favorite?