Did you catch our July 2020 Quilted Joy Clubhouse online meeting? This month we looked at how to quilt 5 easy feathers that are perfect for beginner machine quilters. If you missed the livestream it’s available to watch (or re-watch!) whenever you’d like. Find it on the Quilted Joy Youtube channel!

Our main program for this month’s meeting was about how to quilt 5 easy feathers. Watch the video below to see how to quilt these beginner friendly feathers and so much more!

How to Quilt 5 Easy Feathers

I’ve met a few quilters who told me they would never be able to quilt feathers. They’d tried, and tried, and just couldn’t make them work. Whenever I meet a quilter like this, I challenge them that maybe they just need to try a different kind of feather. There are so many different kinds of feather plumes out there and some will be harder than others. During the Clubhouse meeting we looked at how to quilt 5 easy feather plumes.

1. Longarm Feather
2. Hooked Feather
3. Curled Feather
4. Sisters Feather
5. Leaves - Forget feathers, let’s try something even more forgiving!

Be sure to watch the video to see these five feathers drawn and quilted. I always recommend practicing on paper first, then taking your new design to your machine. And remember, I quilt much better than I draw. Your drawings don’t need to be perfect. They are your opportunity to practice the movements and path and to train your brain. Can you guess which feather is my favorite? You’ll have to watch to find out!

After you’ve practiced these feathers on paper or fabric, be sure to snap a picture and share your work in the Quilted Joy Clubhouse! I’d love to know which of these feathers is your favorite (and you’ll get lots of love and support from our other Clubhouse members!).

And don’t miss our bonus feather - the Garden Gate Feather. Click here to get the Garden Gate Feather Worksheet. You’ll love this super forgiving feather plume! And if you’re looking for even more feather inspiration, check out The Fast and the Fancy by Bethanne Nemesh. Bethanne is one of my favorite quilters and this book is jam packed with feather designs I think you’ll love.

Terri’s Pool House Quilting Studio

For our Looky Loo Tour, we visited Terri in Texas. Terri has transformed her home’s pool house into a fabulous quilting and sewing studio! I’m so jealous of all the windows in her space. Right now my own sewing space is windowless, so I tend to ohh and ahh over other quilters’s natural lighting. Terri has plenty of room for her computerized APQS Millie on a 12-foot frame. And I love that she was inspired by another Clubhouse Looky Loo Tour to add a small tool organizer on wheels! A lot of the folks who watched the meeting live, were gushing about Terri’s ironing station. She used one half of those wire storage shelves and found a company that sold the thick wool mats by the yard and cut it to her preferred size. So clever! Thanks again, Terri, for sharing your beautiful quilting space with us!

Angela’s Favorite Things - Patriotic Valor Paper Panto Package

Because it’s Independence Day weekend, my favorite thing this month is our Patriotic Valor Panto Package! This collection of paper pantographs has three starry pantos that are perfect for your patriotic quilts and lots of other quilts too!

The three pantographs are Star Dance, Shooting Star, and Swirly Stars. If you’re interested in this fun bundle, I do have a coupon code that’s only good this weekend. Use coupon code STARPANTO to get 10% off the Patriotic Valor Panto Package, July 1-5, 2020 (sorry, this code can’t be combined with other coupons).

How Would You Quilt It? Jennifer’s Legendary Loves Quilt

Normally for the How Would You Quilt It portion of our meeting, I’d show you my quilting ideas for a quilt shared in the Quilted Joy Clubhouse Facebook group. But for this meeting, I changed things up a bit. Instead I shared how I actually quilted a quilt! This is my friend Jennifer’s Legendary Loves quilt. It was a Block of the Month from a few years ago and Jennifer dropped it off with me for some custom quilting.

One of the challenges of sampler quilts like this, is there are so many different blocks in the quilt. So when I start to design a quilt like this, I’m looking for ways to bring the quilting design together and help the blocks speak in one voice. Throughout the quilt are the red spiky blocks on the cream background. I noticed in one of the sampler blocks, that spiky shape was also repeated. The floral fabrics made these shapes the perfect space for a tulip or rose design. This floral design was my launching point for the whole quilting design. I’ll go more in depth on my design process for Jennifer’s quilt in a future blog post.

The Quilted Joy Clubhouse live meetings occur on the first Wednesday of each month at 1pm Eastern. Our next Clubhouse meeting will be August 5, 2020 at 1pm Eastern/Noon Central and we’ll be talking about fitting feathers into a setting triangle. If you’d like to watch live, you can find us on Facebook in the Quilted Joy Clubhouse or subscribe to the Quilted Joy Youtube channel to be notified about our videos. Don’t worry if you can’t join us live. The video will remain available on both Facebook and Youtube afterwards so you can watch whenever you want!

Hope to “see” you at the next live meeting!