Hi and welcome! Today is a special post for Project Quilting (PQ) 16.5, "Follow Your Arrow". This little FMQ (free motion quilted) piece recalls Icarus' flight.

Note: It would seem that I'm still having problems with dates and time 😒- the PQ 16.5 closed last week! So please enjoy this post. I did link up to the Project Quilting Facebook page. 

Reclaiming Fallen Feathers

The PQ challenge theme was "Follow Your Arrow" and the Table Scraps Challenge colour for March is yellow. My thought process: arrow → feathers → bird → Icarus

Reclaiming Fallen Feathers

On a very bright piece of yellow hand-dyed fabric, I used a FriXion pen to draw the bird and the fallen feathers. Then I thought of Icarus and drew in the sun. Finally I added the arrow. 

Reclaiming Fallen Feathers on my outdoor carpet

I took out the black thread and free motion embroidered the bird, filling in the area with black. Then came the feathers. I FMQ tiny feathers in the shape. I did the same with the arrow.

Switching thread, I used a lovely variegated orange to pink King Tut thread for the sun. Yellow wouldn't have shown up!

Another view of Reclaiming Fallen Feathers

It was then time to finish it off. I repurposed a scrap strip of blue backing and batting left over from my blue scrappy quilt and used the pillowcase method. Once turned right-side out, I stitched the edge with a very light yellow thread and to FMQ around the embroidered sections. I added some vertical waves to highlight the falling feathers and then an arrow head pattern to give the arrow mouvement.

What I learned

• I wanted this piece to be as easy as possible. I had all kinds of complicated ideas and gave them a firm pass! Yay for me 😃
• I found the yellow fabric, checked out pictures of flying birds and discarded most of them as too difficult for me to FMQ. I then settled on the image of a flying gull, something that even I can draw!
• This was probably one of the fastest pieces that I made, mostly following my intuition. Thanks intuition! 😍
• Once I started the piece, I was done in a couple of hours. Wow!
• I must admit that after I finished drawing the piece, I went on Wikipedia to make sure that I had the story straight. I'm happy to say that I remembered correctly (well at least one version of it!)
• It's funny how I usually start with complicated ideas that I often (but not often enough!) simplify.

Related links

• Project Quilting Season 16 Challenges so far
  
• Project Quilting 16.3 Common Blocks, February 6, 2025
• Project Quilting 16.2 Ombre Challenge, January 26, 2025
• PQ 16.1 Mythical Creatures - A Korean Folktale, January 10, 2025

Linking parties

I'll be linking up this post to many fun linking parties, including Project Quilting Facebook page, Free Motion Mavericks and the March Table Scraps Challenge when it opens. You may want to check some of these out! Put your foot down, Off The Wall Friday, Finished (Or Not) Friday, Beauties Pageant, TGIFF, Patchwork & Quilts,

Project details

Reclaiming Fallen Feathers

created for Project Quilting 16.5, Follow your arrow

Size: 6½" x 5½"

Material: hand-dyed fabric, thread

Techniques: free motion embroidery and free motion quilting