Saturday, 14 July 2007

The basic feathers.

The basic feathers.
I've quilted them using Madeira Polyneon. This is heavier than what I am used to using on a daily basis. I find my stitch length isn't too bad on the Patsy feather on the left but my hands go on auto pilot to do the more traditional one and want to do tiny stitches. I also found because I stitched the traditional one first, I had a muscle memory of doing more even feathers. I didn't manage to get the more organic look until the top of the feather on the left. And then when I went to the traditional feather, I had the opposite problem, my hand wanted to make the design more loose. I don't know if you can see it or not but the markings on the right hand traditional one are only used as guidelines, the lines are not written in stone. I find going for the more natural curve when sewing gives a better result than following the design religiously.
The outlining is an idea from Diane Gaudynski. I like the 'finish' it gives a feather.

Todays Playing

Today I thought I'd play again with Patsy Thompson's feathers and my own.
I've drawn out two areas about the size of a normal piece of paper. One the left I have just drawn a vague spine, like a question mark like Patsy guides you. On the right I've drawn a normal feather. I have given it a double spine and I've just realized I don't want that for this technique, so I'll just ignore that.
I want to see what these look like side by side.
I found out just now that it's not a good idea to try and draw on an ironing board. Far too soft.
I'll post more pictures as I do each stage.