Doing battle with feathers

    Before I forget.....do you like to read?  Do you tend to use a slip of paper to mark your place like I do.  Take a look at these really special bookmarks at Juanita's blog.  She does beautiful art quilts, and until recently all by hand--no machine!  She has a series of landscape book marks that are beautiful, and for sale.  Drop by and say  hello.

     I have been drawing feathers, and drawing and drawing for this month's tutorial by Diana Gaudynski  at SewCalGal .   This is about the 10th  page of practice and I thought I finally had a hand on it.  So on to fabric and thread.  I set my machine like she suggested and started.  Go slow and try for tiny stitches, no gloves, and keep the batt  straight--as in North and South with no flipping it around.  

This is round one.  First the thread kept breaking.  I tried a new needle and re-threaded everything.  It is hard to see white on white, so I switched to a red thread so I could see where I was going and had been.  Oh, boy...that was awful   Back to tan thread and another feather.  And trying to outline was even more frustrating.  She does not recommend gloves , just bare hands for FMQ, but I don't have control without them.  I was not pleased at all with the effort.   I don't like micro stitching.   I put it away....almost in the trash can. I quit!

  This is round two from this morning.  I decided that I would give it one more shot, as I am not a quitter by nature.  This time I set my machine up as I usual do.  I also drew the feather onto the fabric with a pencil before stitching.  You can still see some of the marks that I did not get erased completely.   I don't have or use the blue disappearing marker---one very bad experience and I threw them away.   Anyway, on with the gloves, adjusted my speed and tension and started on the feather spine.  Up, down, and onto the plumes......I did much better overall and even managed  to almost follow the drawn lines and the outlining sort of consistently.   I did not try for those tiny stitches, but instead achieved even  stitches.  

  Insight:  Practice creates muscle memory for drawing and free motion stitching.  When you get frustrated, stop!  Try again later.  

  So, if you are taking the Free Motion Challenge, I wish you great success with feathers.  I have a long way to go with them.   Happy stitching.