Feather Earrings From Thread

Intro: Feather Earrings From Thread

It's really easy to make delicate feathers from sewing thread or other fine thread, and they make fabulous earrings. Feathers are the new tassels!

STEP 1: Preparation

First check your thread for suitability. Linen thread is ideal because it’s quite stiff and so won’t droop, but cotton sewing thread will work as long as you don’t want wide feathers (although you could starch the feathers once they’re made).

The peach-coloured linen I used is finer than most sewing thread at about 70-75 wraps per inch – wrap your thread around a ruler with each wrap touching the previous one without any overlap, then count how many wraps there are between one inch mark and the next. Use the finest thread you can find (ie more wraps per inch), the thinner it is the more delicate the feathers will look.

It’s important that the thread can be split into its individual strands/fibres to produce a nice fluffy feather. So take a short length of it and try teasing it apart with the tip of a pin or needle. Cotton or linen should be OK, but if your intended thread won’t split then choose another one.

STEP 2: The Cardboard Outline

Work out how big you want your feather to be. This will depend on what you’re going to do with it – earrings will probably be smaller than a pendant – but the stiffness of the thread you’re using will also be a factor in choosing the width. A relatively stiff thread will hold its shape even in quite a wide feather. If in doubt, go wide, because you can always trim the feather to make it narrower if you find it’s drooping.

Using a real feather for inspiration, draw the outline of the shape you want to achieve on a piece of thin cardboard. Then cut out a rectangle around the outline with a generous border – at least an inch all the way around.

Snip into the top of the cardboard either side of the centre line of the feather, and make one similar cut on the centre line at the bottom of the cardboard.

STEP 3: Cutting the Feather Strands

Measure the width of the feather outline at its widest point and add 2”. Cut a rectangle of card this wide (but no less than 2½”) and about 3-4” long – if it’s any narrower than 2½” the cut lengths of thread will be too fiddly to handle, the excess width can always be trimmed off the finished feather.

Draw a line down the middle of the cardboard rectangle (parallel with the 3-4” sides) and score along the line with the point of the scissors so that it will fold cleanly in half. You should now have a double thickness piece of card that’s at least 1¼” wide.

Wrap thread around this card a number of times – say 20 - starting and ending at the edges opposite the fold. Don’t pull too tightly, because you need to be able to slide one blade of the scissors between the two layers to cut the thread wraps into even lengths. Cut them and put them aside for now.

I used 70 lengths of thread for each of my feathers which are 1½” long, not counting the hanging loop and the bare section of quill at the bottom. The number required will depend on the thickness of the thread as well as the size of the feather, just cut more as you need them.

STEP 4: Setting Up

Cut a length of thread that’s twice as long as the feather plus about 6”. Fold it in half with the two ends together and loop the fold around the twin slots at the top of the cardboard outline. Then twist the free ends around each other a few times before tucking them through the slot at the bottom. Pull the ends at the back to make the twisted threads running down the quill of the feather taut. (If they have a tendency to slip, hold them in place on the back with sticky tape.)

STEP 5: Knotting the Feather

Take one of the pieces of cut thread and fold it in half with the ends together – hopefully it will still have a bend at the centre point from where it was wrapped around the doubled-over cardboard. Push it part way under the twin vertical threads forming the quill on the feather outline, right at the top, loop first, from right to left. You may need to bend the cardboard slightly to make it easier to get under the quill threads. Then tuck the two ends through the loop – a fine crochet hook might help, but it’s not essential – and pull on them to the left and upwards to tie a lark’s head knot at the top of the feather with its tails lying flat on the cardboard and pointing leftwards. Hold the quill in place with one hand while you pull the knot nice and tight with the other once it’s high enough up the quill, it needs to grip the quill firmly.

Repeat with the next strand of thread, but this time approaching from left to right, then pulling up and to the right to slide the new lark’s head knot right up against the first knot. Pull it tight while steadying the feather by holding the tails of the first knot down on the card with the thumb of your other hand.

Continue in this way, adding feather strands alternately from left and right. Don’t worry if the ends don’t all line up perfectly, they will be trimmed later. After every few knots try pushing them up the quill with your thumbnail to make sure they are as close together as they can be.

If you pause for a while and aren’t sure what comes next just look to see which way the tails of the last knot are pointing; if they stick out to the right then the next loop needs to be pushed under from the right, and vice versa.

When you’ve used up all the cut lengths of thread, just cut some more.

STEP 6: Teasing Out the Strands

When the feather is long enough, trim the strands a little beyond the outline, say ½”. It’s easier to tease the strands apart if they’re short, but the final trim to size is best done once they have been teased out.

Working from the top of the feather downwards, and one side at a time, tease out the individual fibres from each thread. Stick the point of a pin or needle into the thread, close to the knot, and pull it along the thread to split it. It may be possible to do this more than once per thread. The result could look a little rough and knotty towards the free end but that’s OK because the tips will be cut off when the feather gets its final trim.

While working your way down one side of the feather, hold it steady by anchoring the opposite side to the card with the thumb of your other hand.

STEP 7: Final Trim and Finishing the Feather

You should now have a fluffy feather that’s a little wider than you want it to be. Trim down each side to bring it to the outline drawn on the card, then remove it from the card.

Coax the strands near the top of the feather to point more downwards to give a rounded tip. Trim the quill at the bottom to a suitable length.

Give the feather a final check over and trim any stray fibres that need it. If you’re making a matching pair for earrings, put them together, back to back, and check that they’re the same. You may wish to bend the “spine” quill into a gentle curve to mimic a real feather more closely.

Dilute a small amount of PVA glue with water about 50/50 to make it runny enough to be absorbed into the thread without just sitting on the surface. Turn the feather face down and paint the dilute glue down the “spine” right to the bottom of the quill, paying particular attention to the top and the bottom. This will keep the knots secure and prevent the bare section at the base from untwisting. The glue will dry clear but it will darken pale coloured threads a little, so take care to keep it where it won’t be seen from the front.

Leave the feather to dry for a couple of hours. In the meantime you can be making a second one.

STEP 8: Earrings

The loop at the top of the quill can be used to suspend the feather from earwires or other findings. You could feed the loop through a tiny bead first.

Earwires can easily be made from silver or copper wire, silver plated wire or stainless steel wire. 0.8mm diameter (20 gauge) is a good size. I made mine from stainless steel, because it doesn’t tarnish. Look for stainless steel wire that is designated “soft” to avoid problems bending it, and cut it with ordinary DIY pliers not your best jewellery-making pliers.

The fish hook-type earwires in the photos were made using the jig described in my How to Make a Jig for Speedy Earwires Instructable. It also gives instructions for two other types of earwire.

Depending on whether you want the feathers to hang so they face the front or the side, you may also need a jump ring to go between the feather’s hanging loop and the loop of the earwire. There are plenty of ‘Ibles that will show you how to make them too.