Hive 1 July Scrappy Feathers

Happy July everyone :D 

For my block this month I would really like you to make some Anna Maria Horner feathers that will join the collection I have so far! The plan is they will be made into an improv King size quilt. The pattern is Here 

I chose my colours using my chopped up Kona card, one set for the background and another for the feathers themselves.

 

As you can see they aren't exactly a perfect match but I'd say they are pretty close. The low volume is mostly tone on tone with little pops of colour or fun prints to keep things interesting.

 This is the fabric pull I had the most fun with though. Soft roses, ripe plum, dirty teal and rich curry-be still my beating heart! 

So a quick walk through, first off I printed the pattern on normal A4 printer paper. Some people like to paper piece the feather blades and if your one of them I am fine with that but you'll need a couple of pattern piece A. To save printer paper I only printed the last 2 pages as they have the full pattern...and I'm running super low on paper :D 

If you are piecing the blades Olivia jane handcrafted has a great tutorial that saves a lot of fabric, this is the method I used as I tend towards scrap sewing and didn't have full width of fabric strips like the pattern suggests.

You'll flip and cut from pieces A, B and F, and once your done your first feather should look something like this

Sew B to A first and then join the blades to pattern piece C. I've used a variety of dark brown and warm peppery grey shades for this part. 

Next it's the top of the blades E and D, at this point I had to keep checking which way to position piece D as it wasn't coming naturally to me and every time I picked it up I was holding it from a different side! 

Last step I totally forgot to photograph sorry! Stitching the 2 side pieces on...but hey I'm sure you gals can figure that one out ;) 

So this is my finished block and I'm really pleased with how it turned out. If you think you have the perfect fussy cut and want to do as I did and skip the blades in favour of a little eye candy (in this case some spooky trees) feel free! 

And this is the growing collection on my design wall as of last night, I apologise these blocks are really addictive to make! 

OK so as an aside, my finished blocks came in at bang on 16.5" square and I made them in just over an hour including photographing them BUT I have made a few of them before. If you find that they are taking longer then you feel comfortable with it is fine with me if you skip piecing part A of the pattern and have each side as a solid piece fabric - I want everyone to enjoy making these!