Practice, Practice, Practice

First of all, I would like to rescind previous derogatory comments about feathers in general as I am starting to find some variations which I am quite keen about.  This border from Judi Madsen is one of them.  The double circle (mine look like olives rather than circles, but that's another story) make for very smoothly flowing pebble fill.  I struggled a little on the feathers as this design requires making all the feathers in the same direction (i.e. top of the spine down) instead of alternate directions like most feathers (i.e. down on the left, up on the right).   I know that sounds like a silly difference but it really made a difference as I had to really, really think rather than just flow.  I am also working on a domestic machine so seeing where I'm going around the foot is different than with a long arm.  The little triangle spine is brilliant as it fills in any wonkiness of the feathers.  And clearly I am better at making triangles than swirls.

The other variation of Judi's design was this one.  Hers is a fill for a square which I adapted to fit this panel project.  It looks great from the front (red side).  My less than perfect swirls are evident on the contrasting yellow back.

I have to remember that washing this when I'm done will make is so all the imperfections just make for interesting texture.

That's my story.  I'm sticking with it.

More fills just for practice. These are bi-colored panels and the other half will be green.

I also tried some swirls inspired by LuAnn Kessi.  I'm undecided how I feel about them at this time.  I ran out of bobbin and went to bed rather then winding a new one.

I keep plugging away on the USA hand quilting.  Here it is from the back.  The nearer sections have the between the block fill done, which I will have to go back and do on the earlier blocks.   And here's a close up.  I'm maintaining a progress widgit on the right sidebar.  I'm now done with 33 of the 50 blocks.

More Practice

I've been practicing new fills.  This is a swirl and feather inspired by  Judi Madsen.

My book did arrive in yesterday's mail and I'm off to try some other FMQ ideas.

Same thing as above, but with more paisley fillers.  This was also the point in the practice where I ran out of the yellow variegated thread that I was trying to use up from the stash.  Unfortunately, there's little yellow thread in the stash so I was off to the store.

I figured that if thread wasn't on sale at JoAnne's, I at least had a couple 50% off coupons.  Guterman was 40% off, but selections had already been picked through for what I wanted.  Shockingly, the cut counter was NOT swamped and calicos were 50% off, so I stocked up on yellows.

Yes, I know I'm on a fabric diet.  But I've been working so diligently on the FMQ practice panels that I'm nearly out of stash yellow, which is what is the back of each panel.

I've been grabbing panels to practice on that are from throughout the finished quilt that I have planned.  My hope is that it will help spread out different techniques as well as what I hope is progress in my technique.  But I did want to see if my joining technique was going to work, so here are panels 1,2,&3 joined.

The overall design for this practice quilt came to me 2 years ago.  You can read about it at this post if you're interested. 

Practice

I've been practicing a feather fill for squares that I saw on Kay Bell's blog, and decided to give it a try on fabric but my practice panel is a rectangle.  Could be worse.  Could be better.  Definitely organic.

One of my UFO's, waiting to be quilted is the Puce 'Treuse Goose (On Spruce).  I bought this fabric on a whim, just to make a quilt with that name.  (The backing has a pine branch fabric.)

After a couple doodling attempts on paper, I worked out this quilting design.  The feathers will be on the geese (ha ha ha)  with the connecting sections of v-shaped circles.

Note to self - don't like variegated thread for pebbles as it creates random weird bold circles.

And finally, in an attempt to like (and be good at) feathers, I've been trolling the internet looking for examples that I like.  Judi Madsen came to my rescue with this swirl and feather filler.   According to Amazon, my copy of her book Quilting Wide Open Spaces should be arriving today, so I may have some other practice pieces to share by the end of the weekend.