jc469273

There are a number of videos on YouTube showing how to quilt feathers. Sharon Schamber is a good teacher.

fidgety

I LOVE THIS THREAD!!!! Thank you all for the tips....

DianneK

search the net for Linda Taylor free videos for feathers...I think there are some on you-tube

KimS

Found this on Youtube and it answered my question as to how to connect the plumes. It says to stitch the stem for the next plume between two of the existing feathers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDV70Yu5LSo

Want to thank everyone for their suggestions! :-)

Geri B

besides watching dvds, reading books you must do some doodling........that is if you are going to machine feather.....here is an easy beginnning.....with pencil draw a curved line, do not remove pencil from paper, but on one side of line only, draw half of a heart to stem (line you first drew), then go back out with another half heart.....you are starting at the top of feather so make them slightly larger (if you want to) as you move down. When you get to bottom of that line, go back up that line to top again, and do the other side of that line with the other half of the heart--they don't have to line up evenly, be a bit free with it and you don't try to stay on the line of each finished one, keep a bit of space between these half hearts.....doing it with a pencil or pen and paper embeds it into your brain and then translating it to the movement with the sewing machine is an easier transition. After feeling safe with that excercise, go to a heart, circle, or whatever and just keep making half hearts. Then, further down the road, try different techniques of making feathers, and find one that works the best for you...or like me, whatever works for whatever it is I am doing. It will not happen in a day, or even a week, so be patient with yourself, and keep practicing.
Now if you are talking about hand quilting that is entirely a different technique........that involves "traveling" to the next spot........

majormom

After you have drawn the lines on your fabric using the stencil, fill in the lines until there are no spaces in the lines left. That way you will have continuous lines to follow with your machine. I watched a video where the quilter then started at the top of the plume at the stem and stitched the stem all the way to the bottom and then she started stitching to the right of the stem, stitching each 'oval' from the bottom, up and around the 'oval' till she reached the stem again, she then backtracked and when she came to the next 'oval' she started stitching that around until she came to the stem again. She did this to the end of the feather, which is the fatter end. Then she started at the bottom of the feather again, this time on the left side and did as she had done on the right side, starting at the stem and going around etc. HOpe this helps and there are probably many different ways to do it, and this is just one. Good luck. I'm no expert, in fact I don't machine quilt very well at all, but I do remember this video and it looked like a sensible way to do feathers.

feline fanatic

When it comes to feathers, I am a BIG advocate of doodling and drawing feathers until I can do it without thinking about it.

That said, I have some sort of mental block, I can ONLY draw and quilt feathers going from the bottom up. So if my feather has a spine, I start the spine at the top of my plume, make one line of the spine and then make my feather loops from the bottom up. When I reach the top, I zip down the second line of my spine from top to bottom then do the other half of my feather loops, again from bottom to top. I have tried and tried to do them from the top to the bottom and I mess up every single time. Others out there may have the same issue so if you are having trouble with feathers try only doing them from bottom to top. That said I can do a feather in ANY direction I just have to do my loops of the feather working from my perceived bottom to my perceived top. Hard to explain, easy to show.

Sadiemae

Great! This works well if you are doing a fill.

redpurselady

Thanks for this link - it has inspired me to give it a try.

Roberta

The Leah Day website shows you how to do feathers very easily. Just Google the name and it should come up. She has tons of patterns and all appear simple, unless I try to do them.