Magic Feathers with Jude Hill

Magic feathers. Embroidery by iHanna 2011.

Feathers are being collected from around the world!

The Magic Feather Project is a collective stitching project focused on creative sharing and giving. It was started by Jude Hill who had the idea of making the black and white feather a symbol of something bigger than herself. She decided to share it and turn it into a project for charity!

I’ve embroidered three magic feathers and sent them to her. Jude will later sew a bunch of feathers together and put the larger cloth to some charitable use. I’ve been very inspired by her for a long time and I really enjoyed the free online class about feather making. Jude is a master of saying a lot with few words. Almost every day she shares something new and amazing.

Jude asked everyone for a short story to go with the cloth, so here is my magic feather cloth story:

The story on a typed note. Read the rest below.

the iHanna feather cloth story

I’ve sewn three pink feathers. They are newborns, living on an old cotton cloth. The cloth is from a sheet once owned by my grandmother Inga, born 1918. It’s the kind that is sturdy and soft, but now worn out in the middle. I’m recycling the good bits, hoping they will continue to live for a long time still.

I tea dyed the cloth, and embroidered it slowly. The feathers are pink because in that lays my own kind of magic.

I’m sending this from Sweden, from one embroidering woman to another. From Hanna to Jude. From an inspired woman to a very inspirational lady, living in the forest outside of New York. She will then make her magic with it, patching it with other feathers. Then re-send it out. Because we all need something magic to hold on to

/iHanna, a.k.a. Hanna Andersson

In the end of 2011 Jude had received 639 feathers! It will be exciting to see what she will do with them and how she will incorporate them into quilts. Right now Jude is not accepting any more feathers, according to her newsletter, but you can still enjoy some inspiration:

Jude Hill Feather Inspiration

• Whispering feathers – a free inspiration class with videos etc
• Spirit Cloth – Jude’s inspiring blog
• All the feathers – a flickr set with one idea, executed in many many different ways…
• Feather tattoo for Jude by Jennlui
• Feather number 621-623 – my feathers in the collection

Thanks for reading!