John Flynn has acrylic templates. You strip piece the 2 colors for the feathers and use one of the templates to cut out each feather. He has a piece of sandpaper over half the template, so that it butts up against the seam so you are guaranteed that you are placing the template exactly the same on all the cuts you make. He also has a little slit in each of the templates which help you to line up the pieces together accurately. And his instructions are very well written. I think my next NYB will be using up batik scraps, with a tone on tone black background for each. I hate to waste beautiful fabric, but some of my batik scraps are pretty tiny, as long as there is enough for 7 feathers, I am good to go!