Originally Posted by KimS
Originally Posted by Sadiemae
I quilt feathers in several different ways. I think if you post which stencil you purchased it would be much easier to answer your specific question.
This isn't the exact one but it's close. See how one end is smaller? What I can't figure out is how to go from one to another if they aren't joined somehow.
After you have drawn the lines on your fabric using the stencil, fill in the lines until there are no spaces in the lines left. That way you will have continuous lines to follow with your machine. I watched a video where the quilter then started at the top of the plume at the stem and stitched the stem all the way to the bottom and then she started stitching to the right of the stem, stitching each 'oval' from the bottom, up and around the 'oval' till she reached the stem again, she then backtracked and when she came to the next 'oval' she started stitching that around until she came to the stem again. She did this to the end of the feather, which is the fatter end. Then she started at the bottom of the feather again, this time on the left side and did as she had done on the right side, starting at the stem and going around etc. HOpe this helps and there are probably many different ways to do it, and this is just one. Good luck. I'm no expert, in fact I don't machine quilt very well at all, but I do remember this video and it looked like a sensible way to do feathers.