My Workout Report and Stabilizing a Feather Fan

Yesterday wasn’t that great for working out. I did my AM Yoga with Rodney Yee first thing in the morning, but then my dad wanted to take me to lunch, so I missed my lunch time workout session. I also have Wednesday nights as a “free night” partially so I can work on other belly dance projects, sewing, choreographing, website updates and so forth. So I stopped at hobby lobby and picked up the materials I would need to stabilize my feather fans and then started on that project while Bri and I watched Lethal Weapon last night. The technique I used to stabilize the fans is outlined below.

To stabilize a feather fan:

You need to pick up adhesive backed felt, felt glue, E6000 (hobby lobby wanted $14 for this, looks like amazon has it for $5), loose feathers or 2 feather boas that match the color of your fans and cheap water color paint brushes from the craft store.

Open the first fan as wide as it will go – use a pen or pencil and a piece of paper to make a pattern of the area of the fan staves not covered by feathers. Remember to make a notch in the bottom for the space where the staves all come together.

Trace your pattern four times onto the felt and cut them out. I could only get 3 pieces per 8.5 x 11 piece of felt. When I spoke to Gaitri, she said she got all four on her piece. I don’t know if she found larger felt or if her pattern was smaller or if she is just better at making it all fit.

With the fan spread to its fullest potential, put E6000 on one side of the bare fan staves (you can use water to smooth the bottom part of the feathers already on the fan back away from where you are working). Once you have the E6000 on the fan staves (it does not need to cover them) peel the backing off one felt piece and apply it to the area.

Next, use a paint brush to paint a thin layer of felt glue all over the felt and apply your feathers. I used a boa because I couldn’t find loose feathers that matched my fan. I followed the arc with the first pass of the boa, curved up followed it again and finished with a final pass straight across the bottom of the fan (small arch over the place where the staves join together).

Set it aside and let the first fan dry over night. Repeat with the second fan. After both fans have set over night, you can repeat the whole thing on the other side and both sides will be stabilized and covered with pretty feathers.

I'll talk about decorating the fans in another post. I also plan to upload the above instructions (with pictures I took while doing it) to the website at some point.