Quilts of a Feather–A Quilt-Along–Instructions Part Two

Cutting the fabric for the quilted peacock feather…

The peacock is the theme of the India Quilt Festival, 2019  and there are going to be a lot many peacock quilts there, I can promise you! Would you not love to have a peacock feather quilted by you flocking there? A part of Tina’s secret project? Hurry then, and get your fabric and materials in one place and get ready to start!

Cutting the Fabric

I am on my way!

  1. I first cut the fabric for the centre of the feather, which has the four colours from inside out–deep blue, light blue, deep yellow and green.

    I begin with the outermost green portion of the centre of the coloured print out. I carefully insert my scissors along the outer outline of the green and cut out the entire centre.

Cut out the centre of the coloured pattern….
… place it on the right side of the green fabric
2. I pin it on the right side of the green fabric and cut out the oval pointed piece. I do love this pretty green, don’t you?
Pin and using it as a template cut the fabric.
The first piece is ready!
3. I now trim the centre of the print out to the next, yellow portion. I pin it on the right side of the yellow fabric and cut out the fabric, just like I did the green.
Cutting the second, the yellow piece

I could have printed the pattern on freezer paper and avoided the pinning! For a more complicated pattern, I would definitely use freezer paper. Then I could iron it on to the fabric instead of having to pin intricate pieces and struggling to keep them in place.

4. I pin the yellow piece in its place on top of the green one. To ensure that I have it correct, I place the green paper ring on top of the green fabric and then adjust the yellow fabric inside the ring.
The green paper ring on the green fabric
The yellow fabric is placed inside the green paper ring and pinned in place.

5. I am now ready for the next part of the centre, the light blue. Again, I trim away the yellow ring, cut out the light blue fabric and pin it in place. And so, the deep blue!

The yellow paper ring on the yellow fabric helps in the placement of the light blue layer.
The centremost dark blue layer is in place within the light blue paper ring.

I finally have the entire centre fabric cut out and I place it on the fabric for the main body of the feather to see how it looks. Ooh, I do love this, I think that hand-dyed fabric is just so perfect for the peacock feather!

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I have to go now, first for a walk and then to get some groceries, but I should be back in a few hours to finish this! 

Before I go off, I put the tiniest dab of glue on each layer of the centre so that it doesn’t shift while I am away! Note that I am not going to stick it on the blue-green fabric; it is there only keep the four layers of the centre together. I am so excited to see how this will look finished!

 Refer to the first part of this quilt-along for the PDF pattern for the middle-sized 7″ peacock feather that I made and for a list of the materials required.

If you want a print-out of the instructions above, download the file below. You will need Adobe Reader on your computer to be able to read this. It can be downloaded for free online!

Quilted Peacock Feather -Cutting Instructions – Part 2.1

 

Author: Mads

In alphabetical order: daughter, mother, painter, philosopher, poet, quilter, seeker, wife...

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