ramona-quilter Posted August 18, 2006 Report Share Posted August 18, 2006 I have seen some quilts lately that have these amazing feathers. And the feathers seem so lofty. They all have some dense background fill (usually micro stipple) surrounding the feathers. So my question is this... What is the sequence for creating these beauties? Do you quilt the feather first and then the background? Because it would seem that once you quilt the feather, it can't get puffier; freshman science tells me that. Is the reason it looks so puffy is because the surrounding quilt is flattened by the dense quilting? And other than mind-numbing micro stipple, what backgrounds are your favorites?? I've heard that once you commit to background quilting in one part of the quilt, you have to carry on with it. Is this so? Have you ever done a motif, background quilted around it, say 2 inches and then switched to a more open background that is less dense?? Or would that just be ugly? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mary Beth Posted August 18, 2006 Report Share Posted August 18, 2006 You are too funny:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Linda S Posted August 18, 2006 Report Share Posted August 18, 2006 Linda - there are a couple of ways to get your feathers to be puffy. 1) do cut-away trapunto. Sew your top to a piece of 16 oz. airtex batting with some water soluble thread, outlining the parts you want to be puffy. Cut away the fluffy batting from places you don't want to be puffy. Put the top on a backing and thin batting, and quilt it, once again outlining what you want to be puffy, and doing fill work on the parts you don't want to be puffy. 2) do faux-trapunto. Put your backing (lining) on the machine, then a layer of rather flat batting (warm and white/natural, or QD select) then a layer of fluffier batting (I like to use Hobbs Wool). Then put your quilt top on. Do your feathers and then fill in the background around them with a rather dense fill. Your feathers will really pop. That is what I did here: You can use any sort of background filler you want -- McTavishing, stippling, microstippling, tiny feathers, swirls, etc., but I would recommend keeping the fill a consistent size. Linda Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramona-quilter Posted August 18, 2006 Author Report Share Posted August 18, 2006 Thank you, Linda. It was actually your quilt (reds/burgundy) that I had just seen on LA chat. So that's how you did it. I noticed that the quilt above seems to have different background (McT, stipple and switls) in the different blocks. So, it is OK to change the background when you move onto a block. Your quilt looks great. So from my perspective, it all looks good. I really want to try this technique. I did a first-try trapunto on a harvest quilt I made. I liked the puffiness of the pumpkins I outlined but the process was scary and very disorganized. I asked a local quilt teacher to explain the technique to me....she might as well have been speaking Greek. I got so lost in the complexity of it, I just sat there and thought "Why did I ask this question?" You made it sound much simpler. And I appreciate you giving me the brands of batting to use. I'm also noticing that most the the ones I like seem to have either a light or solid backing. You probably lose the quilting in the printed fabric. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bekah Posted August 18, 2006 Report Share Posted August 18, 2006 Linda, that is a beautiful quilt. Love your feathers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoAnnHoffman Posted August 18, 2006 Report Share Posted August 18, 2006 I cheat, I use two layers of batting at once. I use one layer of something like Hobbs 80/20 and one layer of Hobbs polydown for the top layer. No cutting away, it's fake trapunto. The 80/20 gives you a nice weight and the polydown makes the feathers puff. I like using the peacock eye meander lately to go around feathers. It's more fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bekah Posted August 18, 2006 Report Share Posted August 18, 2006 well that certainly sounds fun. what is it exactly? my ignorance is showing I know but if you don't ask you won't learn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Linda S Posted August 18, 2006 Report Share Posted August 18, 2006 Faux trapunto is explained in my post under #2 above. As far as different background fillers, if you can make them work, you can use more than one. Actually the example above is a sampler I made to show area quilters the different kinds of fillers I can do. so that is why there are several. Linda Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SherryRogers Posted August 18, 2006 Report Share Posted August 18, 2006 Nice sampler Linda! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Judi Posted August 19, 2006 Report Share Posted August 19, 2006 Linda in R - Love reading your posts - your are funny! And yet you can get things said and explained for us to - in a way that makes sense. Linda S - Your feathers are great! Awesome sampler - and they do look good next to each other - different meandering - nice to see on something before one decides what to do. I think Bekah is asking about the peacock eye meander that JoAnn mentioned. Bekah - if you go to any webshots page - do a search at the top - just type in "peacock meander" and a bunch of pages / photos will be pulled up. Just image the very pretty end of a peacock feather, where it looks like an eye, thats what you try to stitch. It is a great one to do - quick, fast, fun and forgiving! We can all use that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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