This month I’ve asked my Stitch Tease bee-mates to make feathers for me, rather like the AMH ones, but being me, and being a teensy bit awkward, I’m making them paper piece them – bwahahaha.
Actually, I decided on the paper piecing because I’d read of a number of other people tearing their hair out trying to make the pieced section of the feather fit on the template, whether they had paper ones or the fancy plastic ones that some people have made up. This way at least they’ll only need to unpick one wee section at a time! Each of my bee mates has a different feather, that I created from scratch, but I said I would do a tutorial for them on how to assemble them in general, so here you go:
1. Cut template into 3 pieces as below – ‘A’ section, ‘B’ section and ‘B8’ separately
2. Work out your fabric layout, and get chopping:
3. Start at the bottom of section A with piece A1 (background) and A2 (bottom piece of feather):
4. Trim the seam allowance down to 1/4″ (after you’ve checked A2 covers the correct area!)
5. Flip piece A2 over and press:
6. Repeat all the way up to the top of the feather
7. Add the spine of the feather:
8. Add pieces A7 and A8, then trim seam allowance on spine side down to 1/4″
9. Repeat with the other side of the feather and background piece B7
10. Join the 2 sections at the spine, matching the bottom edge of the paper, and the top of the feather
11. Using a fabric glue stick, stick the paper lightly on to section B8, then join across the top of the feather
12. Trim all the way round.
All done!
I’m not going to give out patterns for these, but I’m guessing if you use the tutes from the EATKS posts this year, you can figure them out nice and easily for yourself :o)
Thanks for the visual Katy. Ill work on mine next week
I love how you are slightly sinister in this post 😉 Beautiful feather!
Love the colors, Katy! You are SO gifted! Hugs, Janice
I can't wait to see the blocks!
The funny thing is when I've seen the feather blocks floating around that I thought they were paper pieced. Great tutorial and I love the background fabrics!!!
GORGEOUS!!!! I have to give these a try soon, very soon.
I paper pieced the feather bit and used the template for the background!
Thanks Katy.
Oh you are a clever clogs Katy!
Thank you
Fabulous,I jave to give it a try.Thanks!
Fabric cut, geese made this evening, on tomorrow's list xxx
Cool!
Thanks Kay. I lays though these were paper pieced anyway!
even i could follow those instructions!!!! im intrigued how they are going to look when they're joined
Katy-these are fantastic! I am going to work on these this week :). Thanks for the tutorial!
Having looked at the various versions of the feathers around, paper piecing seems to be the best route to me too. Your quilt is going to be wonderful.
This looks great, must admit I always thought the feathers I had seen had been paper-pieced too!
How nice of you to make a foundation pattern for your bee mates! And your feather block is so pretty! 🙂
I think paper pieced will be easier than the way I made them!
I'd been eyeing this pattern forever and this looks like such an ingenious way to do it! I may just have to copy you (if you don't hate me to much for it…)
Oooo-ooooh! Love the mixed neutral background.