Fancy Feathers - Try a Tool blog hop

Welcome to my stop on the Try a Tool blog hop with Island Batik and Studio 180 Design!  This hop features Island Batik's new collections, in quilts hops next month, and highlights the fabulous tools by Deb Tucker's Studio 180 design.  I was sent the Wing Clipper tool.  Can you guess what common quilt unit the Wing Clipper is used for?  Flying Geese, of course! For fabric, I have the Fancy Feathers collection designed by Kathy Engle.  Fancy Feathers is full of purples.  So many pretty purples!!! 

The products featured in this post were given to me by Island Batik, Studio 180 Design, Schmetz, Hobbs, and Aurifil. 

 e

I started in EQ8 playing around with flying geese.  While I thought about using my favorite sawtooth stars, I decided I needed something different for this project.  It took a lot of playing, but I ended up with a block I liked.  I am not a perfectionist quilter at all but Deb's tools make it so easy to have perfect units!  My flying geese were never perfect, but on this project, every single one was perfect.  And the other thing I love about her tools is that they make a ton of different sizes.  The Wing Clipper can be used for 9 different sizes of flying geese.

 

I highly recommend using the Wing Clipper with the Quilter's Magic Wand, also by Studio 180 Design.  It's a rod that has a line etched down the center, and that line is a perfect 1/4 inch from each sign, so it's a great way to mark your stitch line for flying geese.

Wing Clipper in action

Quilter's Magic Wand

In addition to the units Deb's tools are designed to make, some can do other things, too.  She has Technique Sheets that show you how to make different units with the same tool.  I really liked the units made with the Geese on the Edge technique sheet.  I decided to use those units as a fun border.  I am so pleased with how it came out!  And I loved the Geese on the Edge technique, I will definitely play with that unit again.

I used nineteen of the twenty fabrics from Fancy Feathers.  There is a beautiful teal print in the collection that I was originally going to use as the inner border, but when I put the top together I felt like the teal was too distracting and that another purple would look better.  I added two purples from the always-available Foundations line and the background is Batter, a neutral I absolutely love.  I couldn't come up with a clever name for this so I'm calling it Fancy Feathers.

I did all the piecing and quilting with a Schmetz needle.  I quilted in diagonal lines using Aurifil Lilac/2562 in 40 weight.  This shade was part of the 2021 Color Builder box of purple threads, inspired by the Cross River Gorilla.  More on the Aurifil color builders coming in October! The batting is Hobbs bleached 80/20, perfect for a quilt with a light background.

Yes, that's me trimming while watching Olympic Archery

  

I loved working with the Wing Clipper and know I'll use it for lots of flying geese in the future!  Thanks to Deb Tucker's Studio 180 Design for letting me play with the tool.  Be sure to check out Curlicue Creations to see what Jennifer made with Fancy Feathers and a different Studio 180 tool.  And you can find the schedule for the full hop here.