Originally Posted by feline fanatic

In my experience, you will find what works best for you and what you like the look of best with more practice and doing more featherwork. I know you have posted you quilt on a sweet 16 but I can't recall if it is frame mounted or sit down. If you feel you are getting too much thread buildup or just don't like the look of all the back tracking there are several things you can try.
1. Don't quilt the spine, simply mark it. Then do your bumpback feathers coming down to the drawn line. As you progress with the feather plume they create their own spine.
2. Again, don't actually quilt the spine but make both sides of your plume as you work your way up. First do your two bump backs and as you come down to your spine mark make two feather bumpbacks on the other side progressing your way up the spine.
3. Tie off at the top of the spine and start anew for the other side on the bottom again.
4. Use a finer thread like decobob, invisifil, microquilter or silk. You can do a lot of backtracking with these fine threads and not get obvious thread buildup.

I like my feathers to actually have a space in the spine like the feathers pictured on this quilt: [ATTACH=CONFIG]601373[/ATTACH]

I usually make the spine about 1/8 to 1/4" wide and I do quilt it out and make the feather plumes on one side then tie off and restart on the other side without backtracking. But I have backtracked the spine other times.