Saturday, August 11, 2012

Feather Quilt

This is my sister Cristin. Isn't she beautiful? I adore her & miss her so much. She lives in Boston & some days that feels farther away than others. She called me a few weeks back & asked if I could make her a quilt. What an honor! I asked her what she wanted & she said whatever I decided. So I told her a few ideas I had & decided to go with a feather quilt.

I thought about what my sister might like & I kept thinking of her tattoo. I wanted the quilt to fit her personality. I think it does & I hope she likes it.

 I am sure you have seen a few feather quilts popping up here & there. Susannah made one & when I saw it I knew I had to make one for my sister. Zana had seen the beautiful feather quilt that Anna Maria Horner had made & then came up with her own pattern. Susannah was so helpful when it came to making the actual feathers. I asked her quite a few questions. We did things a little different. She paper pieced hers & I didn't. I learned a lot from making these & I feel like I could possibly even try my hand at making some of the more complicated picture blocks that I have seen on the Internet. I used some scrap fabric from my stash for the feathers & a blue tiny pin dot fabric for the stem of the feather. Maybe I'm silly for loving muslin so much but I love using it for quilts as a filler fabric. I think for this quilt it really allowed the feather blocks to stand out.

Since I wasn't using an actual pattern I put all the feather blocks on the floor where I wanted them & then cut & pieced the muslin fabric together. It was a little tricky but I was so happy with the outcome.

I decided to keep the quilting pretty simple. Straight lines with a little squiggle every 6 inches or so all the way across.

For the back of the quilt I used some awesome vintage fabric that a friend of mine had given me. The apple fabric & blue pin dot fabric (used in the stem of the feathers) are both from Hancock.

The cute poppy fabric that I used as the binding is also from Hancock.

Here's the front finished!

& The Back

This quilt measures 57"x65"

::UPDATE::
Today Anna Maria Horner released her PDF of her Feather Bed Quilt pattern! It's a free pattern & you can find it ::here::

7 comments:

An Art Nest said...

This is really very special...love the placement of the feathers...I think I may have to make one with more negative space now!!!

amylouwhosews said...

Gorgeous! I hope she loves it! I love your quilts, they are so unique and artful. Not just your average work!

Kimberly @ Seriously Daisies said...

You did an amazing job Summer. It definitely suits the pictures you posted of your sister. I hope she loves it. :):)

christilee said...

I had no idea you had a sister other than Brennen. I don't ask you about yourself enough!!! This is beautiful!!!!! How awesome!!!!

Elissa said...

there aren't even words, summer. brilliant. and, totally random, but i just made kitchen curtains for my SIL with that leafy fabric with the orange flowers and red berries. we have good tastes, no? :-)

Artfulife said...

Lis we are two peas in a pod you & I ;)

100 Thoughts of Love said...

really stunning...and i love the random placement of the feathers!...makes me want to try one..hmmmm:)!