Machine stitching feathers

I have been working on one of my favourite things – feathers.  I love the softness, the colours, of feathers.  A wall hanging I have just made combines stitched feathers with real ones.  

In the first picture, you can see a stitched semi-plume feather which is one that has the central shaft (the rachis) and vanes with barbs, but no barbules, which are the tiny hooks on the ends that zip the edges of the feather together and keep the shape.  So it looks much like a little fluffy Christmas tree.  You will notice how I have stitched this with a few machine stitches to a shred of wool roving and the feather itself is in variegated metallic thread.

The next picture shows a couple of feathers stitched in bright yellow rayon thread.  I have combined these with yellow wool roving and a real feather – that’s the white one.

I have left lots of loose threads because I like the texture, and it helps to give a slightly raised look, along with the feathers themselves being malleable, as they are stitched on water-soluble film.  Always do at least two lines over each other before dissolving.  The result if you don’t is distinctly weird!

Feathers in textiles

This tassel I made from dyed string, which had been used for tie-dyeing fabric, and from feathers collected locally - Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos, Australian Magpies, Lorikeets.

©Christine Linton

©Christine Linton

©Christine Linton

For other feather-inspired textiles, see these or visit here.

Quotes about life

I just found a site which has all sorts of quotes, some that you may know and some you don't; you can research a particular author or subject or just browse:  it is called thinkexist.com.

The quote below that I found there is synchronistically a follow-on from my thinking about the post of 31st January, which was -
"In this week's Sunday newspaper I read an article about how the author feels guilty for not wanting to go off and do adventurous activities on her holidays, "

because sometimes we forget that what we were doing, was exactly what we wanted to do at that time, and it's only later that we wonder why we didn't do such-and-such instead.
The quote is
“No matter how careful you are, there's going to be the sense you missed something, the collapsed feeling under your skin that you didn't experience it all. There's that fallen heart feeling that you rushed right through the moments where you should've been paying attention. Well, get used to that feeling. That's how your whole life will feel some day. This is all practice. None of this matters. We're just warming up.”

 Chuck Palahniuk quotes (American freelance Journalist, Satirist and Novelist. b.1961)from 

If I'm feeling restless, dissatisfied or that old one, like there was a page in life that I seem to have skipped somehow, I find nature to be very soothing, and puts me back on track - or at least accepting that there is a track even if I can't find it right now.  I will go out looking for a feather.  In this photo I made a feather in the shape of feathers .....

A feather made of feathers, stitched to hand-dyed sheeting 

©Christine Linton

I'm going to start collecting together my favourite inspirational quotes - I have put a few in lately in my blog posts including my own such as

this one.

Embroidery and beading

Just thought I would post my New Years Eve machine embroidery.  It started off with hand embroidery for the city buildings at the bottom and for the first few fireworks, then I thought that it needed more life for such a sparkly type of evening, so I dropped a lot of metallic thread waste on the sky part and free-machined with clear thread.  Now the fireworks give the expression of excitement.  I used a piece of black satin given to me as a pillowcase, it was quite thick.  I mounted it on a piece of corrugated cardboard from a box, which is why it's not quite straight all round.  It has gift-wrapping ribbon hanging from it which I thought was an appropriate embellishment.

New Year's Eve embroidery 

©Christine Linton

New Year's Eve embroidery, detail of the fireworks 

©Christine Linton

Something I have tried to machine embroider but not yet succeeded to my own mind, is bird feathers - but I did bead one that I liked.

Beaded feather  

©Christine Linton

Cheryl Bridgart on the other hand has some stunning machine embroidered feathers in this image amongst a website full of stunning machine embroidery.  She inspires me to try again.

Comfort zones

We all love our comfort zones.  But ... out for a walk this morning, planning on a walk along Linear Park, feeling a strong psychological tug to walk up the side streets instead.  But I won't feel the "nature rush" I thought.  In the end I followed the tug.  After a pleasant walk - not immersed in nature but pleasant - I walked back across a grassy area to go home, looked over and discounted lots of bedraggled old feathers, then found - this!  And you can't even see the iridescent nature of the central mauve/blue area in the photo.  But a lovely reward for going outside my comfort zone.

 

First feather found this year

A tiny lorikeet feather, green, blue and white, found this morning on my walk.  Happy New Year everyone.

Feathers

One of my loves and inspirations is feathers.  I spend as much time looking at the ground for feathers as I walk as I do looking up in the trees for birds.  Last year when I was making a bag I embellished it with three types of feathers - beaded, real feathers, and a kantha feather.  Another feather I made a few weeks ago was from a piece of silk.  I drew a line down the centre of an imaginary feather with a gel pen, then cut it out and frayed all the edges with a pin.  It looks really lovely.

Silk feather

This is the "feather made of feathers" ...

Feathered Feather

It is rested on a piece of recycled flanellette sheeting that I dyed for the project - wonderful random warm colours.

Care of Feathers for Collectors:

In search of info on this topic, I found this page on EBay about caring for feathers, and I am linking to it for your interest.  Another thing I was told by someone is to always freeze feathers overnight (in a plastic bag, not on the shelf!) and this will kill any bugs on them - remember that one of the reasons birds shed feathers is because the wildlife on them is getting too itchy.

Inspiration at the Adelaide zoo

A trip to the Adelaide zoo produced some beautiful feathers on the ground - and a close encounter with a very tame Red-tailed Black Cockatoo, one of our native beauties.  This parrot flew close to all visitors and perched next to them until they stroked him.

Birds are such inspirational creatures to me; I have often embroidered them in a traditional manner and now I'm looking at ways to interpret them in a more contemporary fashion.  I have started using the larger and longer feathers that I find as bookmarks, by stitching some strong thread through the quill twice, and sewing the top to the book itself, on the spine, or if a spiral bound journal, attach to the spirals easily enough.

The three middle feathers are Eclectus parrot; the others I don't know

Feathers of White Ibis

You may notice I have updated my logo.  It is now the feathers you see on the right, instead of the embroidered bottle brush flower.  This is part of my revamp of the website, which I will be uploading by the end of December.  I decided to go for the feathers as part of my artistic development, showing the things that are more important to me right now, and that I am using in my work.  New Year is a good time for a new look.