And then the fireworks

The back before the fireworks.
My current favourite pen for dark fabrics (though you have to wait a little while for the white to show up). This one disappears by just holding the steam iron above the work. You can also press it out but I don't want to compress my quilting.

And the fireworks. This is straight from Patsy Thompson's DVD but on my feathers. It's harder to keep the central spine clear, but it's worth it for the effect.

And the back after the fireworks. I used black Bottomline in the bobbin.

Yesterday's feathers

These ones are all done in a 6" square.
The first one is couched thread using the Bernina freemotion couching foot.
This one is a pale green YLI Ultrasheen (btw I've heard YLI are discontinuing this thread)

So is this in a variegated version.


And this one has dayglo orange Madeira Polyneon as the feather and red Ultrasheen as the hyperquilting and the two rows of outlining. This one is not a free style Patsy Thompson feather but one I drew onto the fabric and then hyperquilted.
I've fallen in love with the white Clover pens which iron out.
I did a couple more of my own feathers but I'll show you those tomorrow as I'll be spending all day decorating. I might have to watch paint dry but you don't.

Yes, yes yes!!

It's all very well buying fabric but what if all you want to do is stitch? Today my day has come. Some time ago I bought some stretched canvases with the intention of making little quilts to stretch over them. They are 6" square so today I made this little version of a Patsy Thompson feather. A minor problem, the canvases are way under my table and that might as well be on the moon at the moment. My knee does not permit crawling under tables.

Never mind, I still have to wash out the guideline marks. Yet again the Heide Stoll Weber fabrics absolutely refuse to photograph their colours well.

This one is larger and I made it simply because I could reach this size of canvas. It's got to be washed too but it's photographed folded over the canvas to give you an idea of what it will look like.

This is the back before the extra stitching was added. I've included this photo because the very bright teal is closer to the real colour.

And another sample today

Today I did a couple more samples and had a play. I couldn't resist doing a Patsy Thompson feather (they are much quicker to do than my normal ones) This one was done using Madeira Polyneon in a pastel variegated colour. I used a 90 embroidery needle for this thread. The background is the YLI Silk 100# again with a 60 Microtex needle. If you recognise the background as Mc Tavishing, take another look. It gives the same swirly impression but without all that bothersome backtracking.
Then I played with different infills for the grid work on the wholecloth. I tried just doing some basic stippling (too boring), then I tried some mini feathers (and I do mean mini, those diamonds are 1"), they looked good except the spines of the feathers developed a line from one diamond to the next. I quite like the swirls and I like the way the curves alternate directions in the rows, a sort of wave like look.

And I've even managed to fit in some cutting away of the batting time. Still a very long way to go on this..... And I've yet to start on the big sample so I can decide whether the alternate diamonds in the grid shall be padded or not.

It's good to be back at my machine. Like coming home,