Feather Bed Finally Finished!

Feather Bed

72 x 90

Hand quilted

A free quilt pattern from Anna Maria Horner

Here is a sideways view because lengthwise it dragged on the ground unless the wind was blowing and I couldn't get a very good picture. And here's a sideways view because I like looking at the finished quilt. 

I was looking for some different ways to use my long, bright colored string scraps and decided on this quilt.  (I also made a string star with them). 

I didn't know what to use for background fabric and then I found a this piece of cheddar feather fabric in my stash I had bought at Hancock's (no longer in business here) at one of those "Spot the Bolt" sales where the fabric was $3.97 per yard.  "Perfect", I said. But there wasn't enough of it.  "Darn", I said.   But after work the next day I stopped at Hancock's and they still had some of this feather fabric left on the sale table but it was a little more expensive but not expensive - like $5.00 per yard.  And so I bought all that I needed. "Yipee", I said.  "It was meant to be". 

I quilted all of the feathers with different colors of perle #8.  And that was all I was going to do but noticed there was a lot of room between the feathers that needed a little something. 

And so I hand quilted some....what else?....feathers! I used Coats and Clarks hand quilting thread in a color I had in my tin of threads that closely matches the tips of the feathers in the fabric. I was hesitant to try the feathers because I wasn't sure my hand stitches were small enough to even go around each little part of the feather I had stenciled in in mechanical pencil.  But I gave it a try, persevered (even when my hands were stiff  or shaky and eyes could not see well) and I'm glad I did because they turned out pretty darned good if I say so myself. And I had a good time doing it. I always have a nice, peaceful, relaxing time hand quilting.  (Pack up all my cares and woes...here I go...hand quilting, you know...) 

Well, I should name this quilt Feathers Galore because here is the backing...birds and feathers!!!  The places where I used the perle to hand quilt the feathers looks like little trees (well, to me they do) on the back and it looks like some of the birds are perched in the trees.  I have the same sort of story about this backing as I do about the background fabric only substitute JoAnn for Hancock and substitute "red dot clearance" for "spot the bolt".   This, too, was meant to be. 

It took months of Sundays to get this Slow Stitched so I'm linking up to

 Slow Sunday Stitching at Kathy's Quilts.

And I definitely used scraps so I'm linking up to 

Oh Scrap! at Quilting is More Fun than Housework

Oh, and this was my goal #1

for

2016 Finish-A-Long Q4

Goals rock!!