Feathers Four Ways: Quilts for Janita, Paula, Mildred + Nanette

Happy Weekend, fellow quilt lovers!  I have been finishing a lot more quilts than blog posts over the past few months and it has created a backlog of unshared photos on my camera roll.  Today I'm sharing four different clients' quilts that I quilted with four different allover feather quilting designs, with a brief discussion of how the design, thread, and batting choices were selected for each quilt.  Here's a quick glimpse of the four quilts I'll be talking about today, made by my clients Janita, Paula, Mildred, and Nanette, and quilted by Yours Truly:

Clockwise from Top Left: Feathers and Pearls I, Angel Wings, Abundant Feathers, Fast Feathers

Janita's Flying Geese Sampler: Abundant Feathers

Janita chose the Abundant Feathers quilting design for her cheerful flying geese sampler quilt (I don't have the name of her quilt pattern but if anyone recognizes it, please let me know and I'll update the post accordingly).  I just love the playful energy of her color palette of red, pink and aqua against a crisp white background!

Janita's 70 x 87 Flying Geese Sampler with Abundant Feathers E2E

Abundant Feathers is a very versatile design that looks good on a lot of different quilts from modern to traditional or reproduction quilts.  There is extensive backtracking/overstitching in this design, which is why I recommended lightweight So Fine 50 wt matte polyester quilting thread in Pearl (this post contains affiliate links).  With a thin thread like So Fine, your eye isn't drawn to the double-stitched quilting lines, and on a quilt like this one that has high contrast between the background and pieced block fabrics, skinny So Fine thread will seem to "take on" the color of the fabric it's stitching across, appearing like a pale pink against the red fabric and pale blue against the aqua.  A thicker white or cream thread would not have blended into the darker fabrics that way.  We wanted to keep the focus on the variety of pieced blocks and fabrics in Janita's sampler quilt, with the feather quilting playing more of a supporting role.  One more thing to notice about Abundant Feathers is how evenly spaced the quilting is across the surface of the quilt with this design, compared to some of the other feather designs we'll be looking at in today's post.  That's something to think about when choosing between similar quilting designs, whether you prefer a balanced overall texture like Abundant Feathers or whether you want to see some variety between the more open feather parts of a design verses the denser details of pearls, echoes, etc.  

Feather Quilting Dresses Up Jingle's Setting Triangles

Hey there, Quilty Folk!  I finally have some quilting progress to share on my Jingle sampler that is not invisible!

Sashing Triangles Done, Just Starting This Star Block

By the time I was done with the Drudgery That Is Ditch-Stitching, a little devil was whispering wicked things in my ear like "How much credibility would I lose as a professional longarm quilter if I paid someone else to do this for me?" and "maybe I should try some other hobby, like golf?"  Y'all, I have tried golf and it did not go well -- so it looks like I'm stuck with quilting!

It took me three days to quilt these feather designs in my setting triangles, four if you count the day I spent considering all of the bazillion possible ways I could quilt them until I narrowed it down to this one.  It's a digital block design from Anne Bright that I chose because it has formal, symmetrical feathers that complement the style of metallic Hoffman fabrics that I used in my borders and fussy cut for some of the blocks.  But it's not too traditional, either, with the staggered feather plumes curling around on themselves.  There's a touch of whimsy to these feathers that connects well with the simple appliqué shapes.  At least, that's the hope!

These Inside Corners Were Challenging!

These weird inside corner shapes (above in green and below in red) were challenging both in deciding what to quilt there, how I wanted to turn the corner with the design, and then fitting the designs into the weirdly-shaped spaces.  I was very glad when I had the fourth one stitched without messing any of them up!  

Custom Quilting FINISHED on Judy Niemeyer Prismatic Star Queen Quilt

Today's post will be quick, short on commentary, and loaded with photos because I just could not resist showing you how gorgeous my client's Prismatic Star Queen turned out after quilting!

91 x 91 Prismatic Star Queen, Custom Quilting Completed

My client Mildred used Judy Niemeyer's Quiltworx pattern, Prismatic Star Queen, to foundation paper piece her quilt top.  Several Etsy sellers have this pattern available here.  I believe my client may have purchased the pattern and batik fabrics together as a kit.

Feathers Aplenty, Feathers Galore

Since Mildred wanted me to quilt her top to look "just like the pattern cover photo," I used the digital design set that Quiltworx created specifically for this quilt, the same one they used to quilt the sample quilt on the pattern cover.  

Fresh Off the Frame: A Feather-Licious Peacock Flourish Snowball Quilt for a BRAND NEW Quilter!

Fresh off my frame, and full of fabulously scrumptious feathery texture:

I just finished quilting this snowball quilt for a customer who is also my mom -- this is her very first quilt that she's made by herself from start to finish, and she decided to make it KING size!  Didn't she do a great job?

It's a 12 x 12 layout of 8" snowball blocks that she made following the pattern in the book Quilts! Quilts! Quilts!, 3rd Ed., by Diana McClun and Laura Nownes.  

IntelliQuilter Learning Continues: Exploring Digital Pantographs for E2E + Background Fills, with No Sew Zones

 Good morning, lovelies!  After my little R.B.G. block detour, I returned to the cheater cloth panel that I'd loaded on my long arm frame for IntelliQuilter practice.  Feeling comfortable with resizing and distorting block designs to fit less-than-perfectly-square quilt blocks, I decided to practice laying out and sequencing some E2E (Edge-to-Edge) designs.  Oh my gosh, you guys -- I LOVE how my APQS machine stitches these designs out with R2D2 (yes, that's what I've named my IQ) doing the driving instead of me!  Smooth feather curves, crisp points, and perfect circle bubbles with beautiful stitches on the top and bottom of the quilt, no matter which direction the machine is moving.

Aphrodite Grande E2E on Practice Panel

This particular E2E design is called Aphrodite Grande from Urban Elementz.  It's an E2E because this type of design is intended to cover the quilt from edge to edge, irrespective of the piecing lines, borders, etc.  It's a lot faster way to finish a quilt than treating individual blocks, sashings and borders separately, but it also has the advantage of being very evenly distributed quilting method that retains the loft (and therefore, retains the warmth) of the batting better than heavy custom quilting.  E2E quilting generally results in a soft, drapable finished quilt, too, even if the quilt top is heavily pieced to begin with.  So there are lots of reasons to choose an E2E design for a quilt besides just the wallet-friendly price point.  E2E quilting is great for bed quilts, baby quilts, charity quilts, etc., and there are literally thousands of designs to choose from. 

Aphrodite Grande E2E Design

Now, this E2E design and most others like it are available as paper pantographs for use with non-computerized long arm machines.  With lots (and lots!) of practice, some quilters become quite good at following the quilting design on paper from the back of their machines using a laser pointer to guide their machine along the stitching path.  After a few years of trying that, I've discovered that following paper pantographs is not my superpower -- especially not designs like this one with lots of circle details and tightly nested rows of quilting.  I'm excited about being able to vastly expand the number of allover designs that I can quilt out reliably.  

Setting Up a Computerized E2E Pattern on IQ

But there are more advantages to computerized E2E quilting designs compared to following a paper pantograph pattern by hand.  If purchasing a paper pantograph pattern for Aphrodite Grande, it comes in one size/pattern density only -- with a 12" row height.  With a digitized design in IQ, I can stretch any design bigger or smaller, changing the density of the quilting to make the scale of the quilting design more appropriate to the scale of the pieced blocks, or to adapt the design to my (or my customer's) preferences for lighter or heavier quilting overall.  

Stitching Out My Aphrodite Grande E2E Design

Yet another thing I am loving about quilting computerized E2E designs is that, instead of having to keep my eyes on the laser light to follow a paper pattern at the BACK of the machine, I get to be right at the front of the machine where I can see and supervise the actual stitching when the computer is involved.  My hands are free to work in any fullness or "personality" that a particular quilt top may have, as well, whereas if I was quilting a pantograph from the back of a quilt that had "C-cup blocks," a pleat or two might get quilted in those areas of excess fullness.

Other cool things about the IQ screen in the photo above: When I set up an E2E design, or any kind of computerized quilting design in IQ, it tells me how much thread the design is going to use in yards ("Remaining Length: 16.1 yd" in the above photo means 16 yards of top thread and 16 yards of bottom thread are required to stitch the remainder of this practice quilt).  It also tells me how long the whole thing will take to stitch out (excluding the time it takes to stop, advance the quilt on the frame, and baste the edges).  I have two speed settings that I can adjust, the regular Speed that is set to 2.0 inches per second for this pantograph, as well as a Details speed that I've got at 1.6 inches per second for this design.  I can also program IQ to pause or "Dwell" at the sharp points and other intricate details ("dwell points") of a design, and fine-tuning Speed, Details speed, and Dwell enables IQ to sew even the most intricate, complex designs with accuracy and precision.  So very cool! 

Speed and Details Slowed down for Intricate Block Design

In this photo, you can see that I've got IQ slowed down to 1.3" per second regular speed and slowing to .9" per second for this Willow block design.  I also have Dwell on the highest setting (3), which I learned NOT to do because it caused too many stitches to land in the points, creating knots where the machine was pausing too long.  I got better results with Dwell set to 1.  

Willow Block 4 Design

That's the block I was working on in the photo above.  I have a collection of coordinating blocks and border designs in this Willow set and I really love it.  It's what I'd consider a "transitional" feather style because it can work equally well with traditional or more contemporary quilts.  

Willow Block 1

Willow Block 1, Stitched on Practice Panel

Isn't that pretty?  But back to those E2E pantograph designs.  Remember that I said I can change the scale of the designs to make them more or less dense?  I can also use that feature to shrink a pantograph design way down and use it as a background fill for custom quilting, like "behind" an appliquéd or embroidered area in a quilt top.

Shrinking an E2E Design Down as a Background Filler

That's what I've done in the photo above.  This is an E2E digital design called Dewdrops that, in the paper pantograph version, has a row height of 12" just like the Aphrodite Grande pattern I showed you a few moments ago.  But here, I've shrunk Dewdrops all the way down to a row height of 1.75" with a pattern density of 5.73.  The triangular boundary that I've filled with the design is a partial on-point quilt "block" from my practice panel that I mapped out with my machine needle so that IQ knows exactly where the edges of the block lie on my quilt.

No Sew Zone Created so Filler Doesn't Stitch Over Star

Next, I used the same technique of moving my machine along the edge of the area where I didn't want stitching to map out a No Sew Zone for IQ.  

Ruler Work Sashing + SID, Computerized Block + Background Filler

I'm not 100% pleased with the background filler yet to where I'd put that on a real quilt, but I found some additional educational resources that will help me to get better results with it next time.  Same thing with my first attempt at programming the computer to quilt circles in the sashing -- I found that it was faster and easier to just grab my 1/2" Pro Pebbles acrylic template (available from Lisa Calle here) and quilt them by hand with the ruler.  For now, as far as custom quilting is concerned, I feel pretty comfortable delegating some of the block and border stitching to R2D2 in conjunction with hand-guided ruler work and free motion quilting.

But meanwhile, I have a few real quilt tops patiently waiting for E2E quilting and I'm looking forward to picking out the perfect design for each of them.  And then, don't hold your breath, but maybe I can get my Ginormous Pineapple Log Cabin quilt top turned into an actual finished quilt on my bed soon, after all these years!  Remember this one?

Computer Rendering of 120 x 120 Pineapple Log Cabin Top Waiting to be Quilted

That's actually an EQ8 rendering I created by tiling a photo of the first block I finished piecing, repeated and manipulated in the software to "preview" the way the finished quilt would look with borders and everything before I invested the work of actually making all of the blocks.  Here's what the actual finished quilt top looks like, draped over my 12' quilting frame, so you're actually just seeing half of the quilt top in this photo:

Actual 120 x 120 Pineapple Log Cabin Top, Draped Over 12' Frame

Each of those pineapple log cabin blocks has 97 pieces and the strips finish at just 3/4" wide, so this is a VERY heavily pieced top.  It weighs a ton.  In fact, that's why I don't have a photo of the entire finished quilt top to show you.  I was afraid that if I had my husband and son hold it up by the top border, the weight of the quilt top might cause the center to rip away from the border!

At first I was leaning towards a very traditional Baptist Fan quilting design for this 120" x 120" monster, but I really liked the way that Aphrodite Grande E2E design looked when I stitched it out on my practice panel:

Aphrodite Grande E2E on Practice Panel

An allover, updated feather design sprinkled with pearls like this one might be just the thing for my pineapple log cabin quilt, preserving the loft and warmth of my wool batting, without any thready buildup or stiffness from backtracking.  Hmmm...  Decisions, decisions!  Too many choices is a good problem to have!  To all of you in the United States, have a wonderful (and safe!) Thanksgiving this week!

PSST!!  I'd Love to Quilt for YOU!

By the way, if you or any of your quilty friends has a quilt top or two that needs quilting, I'd be delighted to quilt for you!  My turnaround for edge-to-edge quilting is currently running about 2 weeks, and you can click here to find out how to book your quilt with me.

Tuesday's To-Do List for the Week of Thanksgiving:

1. Finish getting another tumbler charity top kitted for my mom to piece
2. Quilt at least two pediatric outreach tops for donation through my guild
3. Bake pumpkin pies, cook Thanksgiving for our small gathering (just immediate family)
4. Christmas decorating on Black Friday!

That should be MORE than enough to keep me busy for the next week or so, don't you agree?  I'll be linking up today's post with the following linky parties:

SUNDAY

Frédérique at Quilting Patchwork Appliqué

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

MONDAY

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt

TUESDAY

To-Do Tuesday at Home Sewn By Us

WEDNESDAY

Midweek Makers at Quilt Fabrication

Wednesday Wait Loss at The Inquiring Quilter

THURSDAY

Needle and Thread Thursday at My Quilt Infatuation  

Free Motion Mavericks with Muv and Andree

Baby Steps Into Computerized Custom Quilting: Using the Cropping and Distort Features of IQ to Fit a Perfect Design to an Imperfect Block

I played with my new IntelliQuilter (IQ) computer robotics yesterday, and I am GIDDY!!!!!!!!  Is that enough exclamation points for you?  If not, here are a few more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!😁

Okay, here's what I'm so excited about.  Check out the feather design I've stitched below, and how the four corners of the quilting design are about the same distance away from the four corners of the "block" printer on the fabric:

Distort Feature in IQ Made My Feather Fit My Wonky Block!

I've loaded about a yard of this vintage cheater cloth on my long arm for practicing custom quilting with IQ, and I was experimenting with placing individual designs in each block the way I might want to do with this quilt if it was pieced rather than a printed design on fabric.  You would think that a preprinted fabric panel would have perfectly square "blocks" to work with, but as I started working with the panel I realized that these printed "blocks" are just as wonky and imperfect as blocks pieced by human beings would be.  

Compare to This Block Without Distort.  See how the Top and Bottom Points are Too Far Away?

The photo above shows the first time I stitched this design, before I discovered the Distort tool.  The digital feather design I'm using is designed to fit inside a perfect square, so when I center it in my imperfect block, it really draws attention to what would be imperfect piecing if this was a real quilt top.  That makes the quilter look bad.  Even if I was using a stencil to mark this design onto a quilt for either hand quilting or freehand machine quilting, I would still have this problem because I'd have a perfectly symmetrical, perfectly square stencil motif that I'd be trying to position on an imperfect block as best as I could.  The Distort tool in IQ lets me drag those corners out of square just enough to align with where the corners actually are on the quilt block in front of me, and when the quilting design is just as crooked as the block, the whole thing looks pretty darned perfect.  Scroll back up to the first picture to compare.

Using Distort Feature to Fit Design to a Crooked Block

I know this might seem complicated when I explain it in writing, but I was able to sew out several of these blocks in the amount of time it would have taken me to just MARK this design on one block for hand guided quilting.  And it comes out so smooth and even and perfect with no wobbles or swear words!  

Red Laser Light Indicates Needle Position

I moved the laser light that used to be attached to the back of my machine (for following paper pantograph patterns) to the front of the machine, and positioned the light so it shines right down into the center of my hopping foot to mark my needle position.  The first step for every custom quilt block is to map out the outline of the block for IQ so it knows the exact size and shape of the space I'm wanting to fill with a design. That's four quick clicks as I move the red dot of light to each of the four corners of my block.   (In the photo prior to the one above, the purple square represents the outline of the block I traced on my quilt).  Then I insert my design into the block and can resize, rotate, or distort as needed until it looks good to me before sewing it out -- all without having to make ANY markings on the quilt top.  

The second exciting block tool I learned to use today is the Cropping feature.  This lets me position a whole block design onto a half block, like you might have along the sides of a diagonally set quilt, and just crop (chop!) off the part of the design that extends beyond the edge of the quilt.  I mapped out my triangular half block for IQ using Mark On Quilt to define the block boundaries, positioned the same whole block design I'd been using before, and used the Rotate, Resize and Distort tools just like I'd done in the full block.  Then I used the Cropping feature to chop off all of the stitching that would have been hanging off the edge of the quilt, like so:

Resized, Distorted, and Cropped (Chopped!) to Fit Half Block

And here's how that one stitched out:

Same Digital Design, Cropped to Fit Half Block

Eight years ago, when I was quilting Lars's Drunken Dragons quilt with my Bernina Artista 200/730E embroidery module, I encountered this same situation where I had a commercially digitized quilt block design file for the circles, and I needed half block designs at the top and bottom edges of my quilt.  Let's take a quick detour down Memory Lane...  

Adding Awkward FMQ Around the Too-Small, Commercially Digitized Half Block

Whole Circle Block, FMQ Completed

Finished Quilt.  Half Blocks at Top and Bottom.

I remember spending hours trying to edit that design in my software to make a half-bock version and was ultimately unsuccessful (but SHERRI at Lee's Creative Sewing & Vacuum came to my rescue and created an altered file for me that worked).  So it was like magic yesterday to just go CLICK-CLICK-CLICK in about a minute and have IQ chop off half the block for me instantly, leaving me with a beautiful half block that stitched out perfectly where I needed it to go.

The other thing I'm remembering as I look at that quilt from 8 years ago is how frustrated I was that "quilting in the hoop" with my embroidery module restricted the size of my quilt motifs to what would fit in the embroidery hoop for my Artista machine.  One of the primary attractions of my current Bernina 750QE machine when I bought it was the additional throat space that would accommodate larger embroidery hoops for this technique.  So there's a continuum for me between those early quilts where I wanted to quilt a beautiful, intricate design beyond what I could free motion using "in the hoop" and what I'm doing today, which is a lot like "quilting in the hoop" but without any hoop size restrictions at all!  

Back to the practice quilt on my long arm frame today:

Cheater Cloth Practice Quilt, Awaiting Further Experimentation

Now, if this was a real quilt instead of practice, I would have done SID (stitch in the ditch) around the blocks and sashing before I started in with the block designs.  And I probably would not be picking an ornate feather design to stitch on top of a busy pieced block, either.  I foresee that there will be more empty alternate blocks in my quilt tops just so I can quilt out pretty designs like this one where they can be seen!  

So, what's next?  I think I might pop my ruler base on the machine today and switch back to my ruler foot so I can do some fake SID along my fake printed sashing.  Then I can try telling IQ to quilt a background fill design all around -- but not through -- the star blocks in the next row. Probably ought to review the videos on using those features before attempting it in real life, but really, the Help feature in IQ makes it pretty easy to just fumble around and find what you're looking for.  The most valuable thing I gained from the training videos is that I know what the software is capable of doing and I know the tools are in there to be found.

Also, it is so gratifying to finally quilt a pretty feather design that does not look like a macabre necklace made of ogre toes.  And I didn't have to spend 900 hours practicing them before I got them to look nice.  I just had to delegate the execution part of it to my new studio assistant, R2D2!  She is DEFINITELY the droid I've been looking for...

My Quilting Droid, Awaiting Instructions

Happy quilting, everyone!  I'm linking today's post with the following linky parties:

SATURDAY

UFO Busting at Tish in Wonderland

SUNDAY

Frédérique at Quilting Patchwork Appliqué

Oh Scrap! at Quilting Is More Fun Than Housework

Slow Stitching Sunday at Kathy's Quilts

MONDAY

Design Wall Monday at Small Quilts and Doll Quilts  

Monday Making at Love Laugh Quilt

Better Late Than Never: February 2012 FMQ Challenge Completed, Feathers With Diane Gaudynski

Embroidery Disaster Saved by Free-Motion Quilting!

Remember the 2012 Free-Motion Quilting Challenge hosted by SewCalGal?  Each month last year, a different free-motion quilting expert provided an online tutorial with a practice exercise.  We were supposed to complete all twelve by the end of the year, but I didn't even find out about the challenge until June I only managed to complete seven by year's end.  Although I was brand-new to free-motion quilting at the beginning of this challenge, I found that setting aside a couple of hours once a month to practice quilting motifs has made a HUGE difference -- like the difference between drawing with a pen in my hand versus trying to draw with a pen clasped between my toes.  Well, SewCalGal recently announced a "second chance" for those of us who did not meet the goal in 2012, and I now have until October 31st to finish the remaining challenges. 



So, back in April I spent something crazy like 6 hours embroidering this enormous Jacobean bird design, only to have it shrink up and pucker when I attempted to press the finished piece from the back side?  (I have a theory about that, by the way -- I had layered a piece of unwashed muslin beneath the silk shantung prior to embroidering for extra stability, then trimmed away the excess when the embroidery was complete.  I think the muslin backing shrank when I ironed it).  

Ruined Embroidery Project, Ripe for FMQ Practice

I decided to use this ruined embroidery project for FMQ practice, to see whether I could quilt out those ugly puckers and ripples between the embroidered areas.  I spent several hours yesterday and today working on Diane Gaudynski's February 2012 feather tutorial, and I could not be more thrilled with the results.  I have admired Diane's machine quilting, and the machine quilting of her students, for years, and I own both of her wonderful books.  Still, I've not felt up to the challenge of trying to quilt feathers until now.  This is the first time for me just sitting down at the machine and quilting feathers over and over again.  They're far from perfect up close, but much better than I ever thought I would be able to do.  And, thanks to the FMQ challenge, I now know that my quilting skills WILL get better and better, the more I practice.  If I can do this, ANYONE can learn!

 

So yes, I was able to quilt out all of the puckers in this embroidery design, and what's more, I managed to quilt some passable feathers and lumpy-but-acceptable pebble background quilting.  I have long struggled with both of those designs and have been practice-doodling feathers on my iPad for months.  Wahoo!

 

 

Can you believe this is the exact same project as the ugly wrinkled mess in the previous photo?  I almost threw this away!  Now I like it so much that I have to come up with something to do with it.  The finished piece is 16" x 20."  Any ideas?  I suppose I could just square the edges, bind it, and call it a "mini wall quilt." 

 

I'm Quilting Feathers! 

I attempted several different feather styles, but even though the traditional, backtracked feathers are supposed to be the most difficult to quilt, those were the easiest for me -- probably because that's the way I've been doodling them.  However, I was NOT doodling the stem correctly, so all of my stems are a bit wonky.

 

My fabric is a glitter-flecked silk shantung layered with Hobbs Tuscany Silk batting and muslin backing.  I used #100 silk thread in the needle and 60/2 Mettler cotton embroidery thread in the bobbin, with a size 60 Microtex needle, tension reduced to 1.50, and BSR stitch length set to 1.5.

 

It even looks cool from the back, see?

 

Back View

 

So now that's one more down, and only four more to go.





September FMQ Challenge: Feathered Wreaths in a Drug-Induced Fog

My Feathered Wreaths

Greetings from the Land of Clogged Sinuses, Violent Sneezes, Watery Eyes and Reddened Nostrils!  Sick or not, today was the last day to post my sample for SewCalGal's September Free Motion Quilting Challenge, so I drugged up on Alka Seltzer Plus Cold & Flu meds and faced my fear of feathers!

This month's challenge was brought to us from the amazing quilter Paula Reid.  Paula posted a video clip demonstrating her "fluff and stuff" method for maneuvering quilt bulk on a domestic sewing machine, which I really appreciated.  She also posted a feathered wreath block design courtesy of The Stencil Company for us to practice with this month.  I've never quilted on a marked line before, and I've never quilted any kind of feather before, either, so I spent the last 29 days doing some serious procrastinating.  You would be amazed at all of the "urgent" things I "had" to do before I could think about attempting this challenge...  ;-)

I decided to trace the design onto my fabric with my light box, using four different marking untensils: Disappearing Pink pen, Disappearing Purple Pen, Blue Chalk Pencil, and Pink Chalk Pencil.  The two disappearing pens disappeared as soon as I'd finished marking the designs, so I had to go over them again.  The pink chalk pencil was so faint on my fabric that I could barely make out the lines as I was quilting, but the blue chalk pencil worked fairly well.  My plan is to serge the edges of this sample and toss it in the wash after the markings have sat for a week or so, to see whether any of the markings remain after washing.

Fourth Attempt

I'm quilting with Aurifil 50 weight thread for the first time, and also using my Bernina BSR contraption to ensure a consistent stitch length with the feed dogs down -- and LOVING IT!!  I think the problems I was having with the BSR before were due to high speed on the background fill designs.  The BSR was a lifesaver for following these marked lines, which I quilted much more slowly.  No problems whatsoever.  Quilty Love!  75 Schmetz quilting needle, Hobbs Tuscany silk batting, and I pin-basted. 

The verdict?  Not as bad as I thought!  For the first wreath, I tried to eliminate backtracking the way some others did for this challenge, but I found it very difficult to maintain an even space between individual feathers, so for the other wreaths I backtracked as carefully as I could.  It's not perfect, but it's passable.  When the markings are gone, I think it will look pretty good.  Here's the back side:

Backing Side Up