So beautiful!! I don't know if my freehand feathers will EVER be that even....I feel like a klutz when I look at those "practice" samples.
Does the Hobbs PolyDown come in different thicknesses? I love the poofyness (word??).
As far as I know, there is only one thickness of the poly-down (rather medium loft). Before I load it, I put it in the dryer for about 10 minutes, to really fluff it. Then, to ensure that I get maximum "poof" with my feathers, I stabilize the sides (very important first step), then apply pretty taught tension all the way around the exposed working portion of the quilt. After quilting is complete, and the project is unpinned from the rails, the "quilting shrink" is what really gives the feathers definition.
Note: The side clamps that came with my Gammill are insufficient to provide the sort of uniform tension that I need to achieve this look. Therefore, I made my own side tension "leaders", which are 21" wide, and attach to the entire exposed section of the quilt, instead of two "pressure points" on each side. TMI?
TrenbeathRanch
09-08-2011 04:41 AM
Originally Posted by pjnesler
Beautiful, it would be hard to stay away from that machine!
How do you sleep?
Funny question, because it's so close to the truth! My husband actually welded and painted a beautiful custom light bar for my machine, so that I could get to work at 4:00am!
I honestly don't know what Gammill sells (I never asked). I was a LAQ for 10yrs before switching to the Gammill, so I've continued to use the same products that have always been part of my repertoire. I keep two types of batting constantly in stock on big rolls...one is poly-down, the other is hobbs 80/20. I've never found anything else that gives me the depth of texture that I can achieve with the poly-down, unless we're talking trapunto, but that's a whole lot more work!
