Mar 07 07

Trapunto 102

I have been meaning to post the second part of this tutorial for some time, but I guess time has just gotten away from me! If you refer back to Trapunto 101 in the 1/21/07 post, we finished up after we had done the trapunto under the appliqued butterfly. The picture below shows what the backside of this quilt block looked like when we were done:

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Remember, you don’t have to worry about knots or long threads on the backside because no one will ever see it! The next step was to add the borders so the entire top was finished. I needed to finish the whole top because our next area of trapunto, (the flightpath of the butterfly) will be stitched in an area that will go into part of the border. This is the whole top pieced but not yet completely trapuntoed:

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This next step is where it will get very fun very fast! What I did here was to trapunto some of the area that will be quilted. A technique like this is valuable if you are trying to make an area of your quilting more significant or important to the viewer. What it will do is cause the trapuntoed quilted area to stand out more prominently from the rest of the quilted area. Moves like this add more interest to your quilt by virtue of creating different depths and textures. Anyway, I digress! To do this, place a piece of batting underneath the quilt which is just a bit larger than the area you will actually quilt right now. (You can use spray adhesive or fabric glue, but I just pin it because remember, you’re going to have to cut away all the excess batting outside the trapuntoed area and it will be more of a hassle if there’s any adhesive involved.) An important point here is to pay attention to the type of batting you use here. You want a VERY THIN BATTING for this part-if you don’t, it may really distort your top in a way that could wreck your quilt. The picture below shows the top with the flight path stitched in place:

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This next picture shows the backside of the top with the excess batting cut away:

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Can you tell that there are 2 types of batting being used? The batting underneath the flight path was VERY thin and the butterfly batting is Hobb’s 80/20. Once that excess batting has been cut away, you’re getting pretty close to the finish line. I spray basted my top to batting and backing fabric and was ready to do my normal quilting. The first thing I did was to use invisible, (monofilament) thread to stitch all around the outline of my butterfly and also around all the individual “parts” and decorations of the butterfly. This makes them all stand out somewhat. Then I moved to my flightpath. Using the same monofilament thread, I stitched just outside my quilted flight path. I should tell you that the flight path itself was stitched in a very heavy size 12 pearl cotton embroidery thread because this was another move to make it more prominent or important to the viewer. I should also tell you that the area inside the plumes was hyperquilted or overquilted with polyester thread when I was still in that early trapunto phase, or before my entire quilt was put into a quilt sandwich. If I had waited and done that now, it would kind of un-do my trapunto effect, or lessen how much my flight path stands out. Then I finished quilting the rest of the top. See the picture below for the final product:

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I don’t know that the picture does justice to how much these objects stand out. This gives you a bit better view of differing depths:

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And this picture gives a bit better of a view of the flightpath:

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