September FMQ Challenge - Fancy Feather Stencil

This month's tutorial was provided by quilting expert Paula Reid.  She provided excellent tips to fluff and stuff your quilt inside the harp as well as the table lay out to prevent the quilt from dragging or falling over the left side or back.  Paula used a stencil to mark the fancy feather design.

I don't like to mark my quilt tops as I find removing the markings a pain you know where regardless of the method used.  For my practice scrap I traced the fancy feathered design onto transparent wash away embroidery backing.  The scrap quilt sandwich is 100% cotton from an old sheet.  The back is 100% blue denim from recycled jeans.  The batting is  warm and natural cotton.  The thread is Marathon 100% polyester trilobal embroidery thread.

 I used an 80/12 Schmetz universal needle.

The back side is hard to see, this red thread did not have enough contrast to the blue denim.

For my sampler quilt I chose a feathered wreath out of a book and traced it onto parchment paper.  Then I sewed the design onto a second piece of parchment paper with no thread in the needle.  I pinned the needle punched design to the top of my quilt and quilted the through the parchment paper.  The thread is Superior 100% cotton, the needle was a Schmetz 80/12 quilting needle.

These photos were taken in direct sunlight using a Hoya cir-polarizing filter on my Canon Rebel XT slr camera.  The filter worked great, as the colours did not get washed out by the sun.

This is the back side of my sampler quilt.  Note to self, do not use thread that matches the back of the sampler quilt.  It is difficult to see the design and photograph it.

The echo feathering design outside and inside the wreath was done without marking the quilt top.

Yippee!! I completed the September challenge before the end of the month.  ~dancing around the room with glee!