Sunday 24 August 2008

full explanation of feather with little circles

Start with a line for the spine

Add a lobe at the bottom, click to see arrow for direction.

Then do one the other side, cross over the spine and do a new lobe up the first side
Do this until the feather is finished. Sometimes you need more on one side than the other.
Then go just outside the feather with a line. Try to get it the same distance away from the feather as the gaps between the lobes.
Then start your little circles from the bottom. They are just like a series of little e's but you keep the straight bits on your previous line and the loops of the e's circular.
Go all the way round
Then take another line outside the feather just touching the edges of the e's or little circles.
On the test piece I put an extra line round the outside like this but on Heide's quilt I've decided to stop before this line.

6 comments:

  1. thanks for sharing your technique! When I try to do feathers I end up with circles on either side of the spine rather then nice paisley shapes, I don't draw the spine first, and actually draw the "feather" parts clockwise... May have to try going counter clockwise and see if that gets better shapes for me :-)

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  2. Fantastic tutorial - I can't wait to play with this technique!

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  3. I think I may have to try this. Thanks for the tutorial.

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  4. Aha, I'm with you now! Thanks for that - brilliant instructions.

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  5. Thank you so much for this tutorial. I've been going the other direction with my feathers and tried to make them touch and have not been happy with the results. I'm going to try your way -- I bet it works much, much better.
    PS-- I'm doing this as anonymous because I don't understand the other choices.

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