I've searched and read quite a bit but haven't really had my question answered yet. I would like to do some feathers so bought a stencil to work with until I get use to it. My question is does each plume start and stop or do they continue end to end until you've reached the end of where you want them?

Are you doing them by hand of machine? Feathers scare me. I keep trying them, but they never look like I want them do.

I'll be doing them by machine. They look so pretty and am ready to take that next step and do something other than meandering.

Find some finished quilts online, and see if they are feathered, and if they are, make the picture bigger and you can see the
answer to your question.

Just a suggestion.

machine quilting we tend to make lines as continuous as possible- as few starts stops as possible- so they are done from start to finish= there are a number of good tutorials-videos showing different ways to make feathers- do a search of 'machine quilting feathers' to see different ways they are shaped - done

i do them as one continuous many times that means back tracking in some way on the design.

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.

if done by machine, they would be continuous. i could not get the backtracking to look good, though. so i have tried a technique i've seen that leaves a narrow space between the plumes

Check this one for "hooked" feathers - machine-quilted, continuous, no backtracking over already quilted lines.

http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-36855-1.htm

There's a whole book "Hooked on Feathers", but I reckon you could probably figure out how it goes purely by looking at the pictures in the post I linked.

I quilt on a LA so I always try to make a plume continuous. I do a lot of backtracking on mine but there are ways to not have to backtrack over an already quilted line. If you are doing them on a domestic machine I highly recommend getting one of Diane Gaudinski's books on machine quilting. She does beautiful feathers and has loads of hints.

The book is nice though, because she shows many variations on the feathers.

Diane Gaudynski recently had a great post on how she makes feathers:
http://dianegaudynski.blogspot.com/

And I recently viewed some great Patsy Thompson videos online on free-form feathers (spine vs. no spine), but I can't locate where I saw them. :roll:
They're out there somewhere. ;-)

Here's her blog (and her DVD's are great):
http://www.patsythompsondesigns.com/blog/

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.

Do you mean from one end of the feather to the other end or from one feather to the other? I don't think the two different feathers are necessarily meant to be quilted together. You can stencil one or the other and shift them according to the space you are quilting.

I mean do you connect one feather to the next? I know these are 2 different designs and not meant to be put together but they were on the same stencil.

I think I am really mental today--I am not sure if I understand the question. If you going from one complete plume of feathers to the next, I will sometimes echo my plume to the point where I want to start another plume--then finish my echo when my plumes are finished. You could also just cut your thread at the end of each plume and begin again. It would be a lot of starting and stopping, but you could do it. Or if you are going to do another design between the plume of feathers, you can do part of this design until you reach where you want your next plume--do the plume and then finish the other design.
Does this make any sense at all?

I think I understand. You don't have to connect the plumes if you don't want to. Right?

http://featheredfibers.wordpress.com...hand-feathers/

Not sure if this link answers your question. I also learned through stencils. I drew the design on muslin with an ink pen for practice. Over and over and over. Once you practice practice practice, hopefully you will get comfortable doing them and you may end up with your own technique. My feathers have parts of the plume and the stem with backtracking. I am now used to the look, as some areas are more prominent than others with the double stitching, and most areas do not have it. When the feather is done, I think the double stitching (backtracking) really stands out and adds to the design. But not always. I too would love to be able to sew these things without the backtracking. To get the look of single stitching, I stop my machine, back stitch 2 stitches, cut the threads, and move to the next area. Works and looks just fine to me.
Leah Day is terrific also. So many designs, so much talent.

Wow... thanks lasies for all of the reccomendations... i will be practicing up a storm now... thanks again. this site is great..

Thanks for this link, it was an ah-hah moment for me.

There are a number of videos on YouTube showing how to quilt feathers. Sharon Schamber is a good teacher.

I LOVE THIS THREAD!!!! Thank you all for the tips....

search the net for Linda Taylor free videos for feathers...I think there are some on you-tube

Found this on Youtube and it answered my question as to how to connect the plumes. It says to stitch the stem for the next plume between two of the existing feathers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDV70Yu5LSo

Want to thank everyone for their suggestions! :-)

besides watching dvds, reading books you must do some doodling........that is if you are going to machine feather.....here is an easy beginnning.....with pencil draw a curved line, do not remove pencil from paper, but on one side of line only, draw half of a heart to stem (line you first drew), then go back out with another half heart.....you are starting at the top of feather so make them slightly larger (if you want to) as you move down. When you get to bottom of that line, go back up that line to top again, and do the other side of that line with the other half of the heart--they don't have to line up evenly, be a bit free with it and you don't try to stay on the line of each finished one, keep a bit of space between these half hearts.....doing it with a pencil or pen and paper embeds it into your brain and then translating it to the movement with the sewing machine is an easier transition. After feeling safe with that excercise, go to a heart, circle, or whatever and just keep making half hearts. Then, further down the road, try different techniques of making feathers, and find one that works the best for you...or like me, whatever works for whatever it is I am doing. It will not happen in a day, or even a week, so be patient with yourself, and keep practicing.
Now if you are talking about hand quilting that is entirely a different technique........that involves "traveling" to the next spot........

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.

When it comes to feathers, I am a BIG advocate of doodling and drawing feathers until I can do it without thinking about it.

That said, I have some sort of mental block, I can ONLY draw and quilt feathers going from the bottom up. So if my feather has a spine, I start the spine at the top of my plume, make one line of the spine and then make my feather loops from the bottom up. When I reach the top, I zip down the second line of my spine from top to bottom then do the other half of my feather loops, again from bottom to top. I have tried and tried to do them from the top to the bottom and I mess up every single time. Others out there may have the same issue so if you are having trouble with feathers try only doing them from bottom to top. That said I can do a feather in ANY direction I just have to do my loops of the feather working from my perceived bottom to my perceived top. Hard to explain, easy to show.

Great! This works well if you are doing a fill.

Thanks for this link - it has inspired me to give it a try.

The Leah Day website shows you how to do feathers very easily. Just Google the name and it should come up. She has tons of patterns and all appear simple, unless I try to do them.

Go to this website for a free quilting magazine. Leah Day has three methods showing how to do feathers 3 different ways.

www.onlinequiltmagazine.com/downloads/oqm-2011-10.pdf

There is also a link there for her website.

You don't have to use both feathers. Use the larger or the smaller one. If you are determined to use both, trace the larger one first and then shift the stencil to attach the smaller one to the larger one at an angle. You must remember to ignore the bridges between the feathers. Don't start and stop at the bridges--just continue with a continuous quilting thread. The bridges merely hold the cut stencil together. If you cut the little bridges, your stencil will fall apart. You may have to backtrack over some lines of stitching to get from point A to point B, though. Good luck and post so we can see what you did.

I practice, but my feathers I can't even describe. It'll take awhile for me to use feathers on my quilts.

Thank you! That makes so much sense. :thumbup: :-D

But you could use the concept for doing regular feathers right?

Here are pictures of 2 different kinds of feathers. The 1st is handy for free motion. No tracing involved. A bit more relaxed. The second is more formal. You will see these on show quilts. The trick here is to trace RIGHT on top on the 2nd 'hump'. Not easy! The Hooked on Feathers book is very good. I am an advocate of dry erase boards or a sketch book. I wish you could see my 1st feathers in my sketch book! YUCK! Can you say potato chips and hot dogs? How about bananas!?

And my FAVORITE go to feather is called a 'wonky feather' . I learned it on my Pajama quilter DVD. Here is a picture and a link:

http://pajamaquilter.com/

She is alot of fun and encouraging for new machine quilters. Happy feathering!

I haven't read all the answers, but I'll post my thoughts on this.........go to www.youtube.com and do a search for "quilting" or "longarm" or "machine quilting" and you'll see videos of people doing feathers. That'll give you an idea....:) :)

Check out the October/November 2011 issue of Quilting Arts, available now $7.99. Good directions for feathers and other really cool quilting designs. I found my issue in my Kroger Store.