Monday, March 15, 2010

feathers

Thanks for all the great comments on my last post! I decided to go with the last setting. I also decided with that setting the quilt needed to be square requiring 16 more blocks. I've 5 more made - 11 more to go. :0) I thought I'd post my progress with hand quilting feathers. I'm enjoying it very much and although the border really is too narrow for them I like how it looks so far. I'm nearly 1/2 way around the quilt.
I'm probably not quilting them right - I really would like to take a class sometime - learning this skill from a book is not ideal. I also need to figure out what to do with the unquilted parts - are they too big to leave unquilted? What could I quilt in them? I was sort of thinking straight lines/diagonal lines but I'm not sure how far apart. Maybe I could just extend the fans to go around the feathers? Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!!
Happy Quilting!

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think the fans would look great up to the feathers....no matter your hand quilting is wonderful!!

Dora, the Quilter said...

Beautiful hand quilting, Janet!
When I was doing hand quilting, I sometimes quilted a lattice behind/next to the feathers. But what I felt often looked even nicer were sets of lines, usually at about a 60-degree angle. A 60-degree ruler works well, although before they were available I would cut a cardboard v-shaped ruler that was as thick as the planned distance between quilting lines. (The other edge of the "v" aligned with the quilt edge to assure that the lines remained at 60degree angles to the quilt edge.) Lines worked best if the distance between them was less than the thickness of the feathers--hope that's intelligible. Sometimes I'd quilt a second line 1/4" away from the first and establish a double-single-double pattern; that helped the feathers show up a little more too.
Hope this is helpful to you.

Always Ride The Bull said...

The main picture on your page is so beautiful, as is the rest of your work.

Elizabeth said...

Amazing hand quilting. I think extending the fans out to the feathers is a good idea. It will complete the look.

MARCIE said...

No advice from me, I just like to look! Very lovely!

Crispy said...

Extending your circles would look lovely though I actually like it as is. I do know how sometimes the quilt is telling you to fill those empty spaces and buy using the circles it ties the whole effect together and the amount of quilting will look balanced. I must say you quilting is WONDERFUL!!

Crispy

Peggy said...

Just stumbled across your blog today - gorgeous quilts, and so happy to find another quilt blogger in western Canada.

Janet said...

It's such a joy to see your quilted feathers. I like Dora's suggestion or lines of some sort.

Carrie P. said...

What a great job you are doing. I like the idea of extending the fans. It is something different.

Ann Champion said...

Your quilting is beautiful! If it were me..I'd add more quilting in the background area of the feathers. You want the amount of quilting to be about the same across the entire quilt. I think extending the fans would look wonderful. :)

Evelyn in Canada said...

I think extending the fans would tie the border into the rest of the quilt. But you've heard it before and I'll say it again -- I'm not a quilter and know not of what I speak! It looks great, that much I know.

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Rose Marie said...

I've never done feathers before, but yours look just fine! :o)