Originally Posted by
DawnFurlong
I definitely prefer a particular direction on some designs (feathers, moving up) - so I'm going to have to work on that (or I'll have to figure out how to do my designs so that I maneuver to my preferred starting place).
I think feathers in particular have many people with a preferred direction, myself included. Both doodling and paper towel practice are a big help in learning to do them in other orientations, which comes in very handy when working with big quilts, where turning the quilt around isn't an option.
I remember seeing a video of a professional long arm quilter where she talked about how she disliked having to re-stitch the center spine (or alternatively tie-off and restart sewing in the desired spot), that she forced herself to learn to make feathers in either so that she could sew the spine and then make add the feathers going up one side and going down on the other side. There's lots of different ways to make feathers, and I like the look where the spine is made of two rows of stitches (about 1/4" apart, usually), and I also like that I can then sew the feathers on the same direction without any duplicate stitching lines. Here's a drawing of how I do it:
I start at the red dot, and draw the tip plume (counter clockwise, inner loop). and then go down the left side of the spine. Then I make feathers going up the left side of the spine. (I drew them with cat-claw feathers, because it's easier to see what's going here, but you can do other styles, too. I also didn't quite connect any of the feathers to the spine, because that makes it easier to see what's going on, but when sewing (or drawing) for myself I connect them.) When I finish the left side, I echo around the tip plume and then sew the right side of the spine, and then add the right feathers going up the right side of the spine, finally ending at the blue dot.
Another way to get to do both sides the same way is to use echo-ing around the outside of the feathers - sew one side in your preferred direction, echo around the outside of all those feathers to get back to the starting point and then sew the other side in the preferred direction (and then echo around the second side to have it match other side). I love how the echo makes the feather stand out more.
It will be very interesting to see what strategies Angela will cover!