Your presenter today is Kim Brunner. Your presenter today is Marie Eldredge Handi Quilter Studio Educator

Transcription

1 Your presenter today is Kim Brunner Your presenter today is Marie Eldredge Handi Quilter Studio Educator 1

2 The art of using batting to create exciting dimensional effects on your quilts.

3 Trapunto Can Completely Transform the Look of a Quilt This ancient technique might look intimidating and tricky, but it s not. Trapunto can be accomplished by all quilters regardless of their preferred system; stand-up, sitdown, even hand quilters! The technique is the same. The only thing that changes is how it is executed.

4 Before committing to a trapunto design plan, be aware that completing this technique will take more time than a traditional quilting design plan. The technique is not difficult, but it does require a time commitment. Don t let this scare you away; the results are definitely worth it!

5 The Cliff Notes Version of Trapunto The designs and/or placement marks are carefully marked. The quilt is sandwiched with the trapunto batting only; No backing fabric, just batting. The trapunto designs only are stitched out, using either basting stitches or a special thread. These stitches are temporary and will be removed later.

6 The excess batting is carefully cut away, leaving batting only beneath the designs to be trapuntoed. The quilt is sandwiched again, this time with normal batting and backing fabric. The sandwich now has a quilt top, stitched designs that are padded with the trapunto batting, a layer of normal batting, and the backing fabric.

7 Quilting is completed. The trapunto designs are re-stitched and this time the stitches are permanent. Special attention is paid to heavily quilting the backgrounds. The flatter the backgrounds, the more the trapunto will pop. When quilting is complete, the temporary stitching is removed.

8 To increase the dimension created by the trapunto, the quilt is blocked. Blocking helps to achieve a flatter, more square quilt and it dramatically increases the pop of the trapunto. If you don t know how to block a quilt, visit the Learn page at Kimmyquilt.com for free, detailed instructions. The finished quilt is now available for admiration.

9 Trapunto Step by Step You will need some specific tools. You might already have some of these on hand; if you don t have them you can easily get them from your local quilt shop or fabric store. A fine line marker; either a water soluble or an air-erasable marker will work. I prefer the Dritz Fine Line water soluble marker because it lasts longer and the marks don t disappear until I make them disappear. Make sure it s a fine line. The finer the mark, the more accurate the design placement. Please test before using; You re going to weep if those marks don t come out later!

10 The Correct Batting Is the Key to Success You want it to be nice and lofty But, even more importantly, you want it to be super dense.

11 If you d like, you can play around a little bit with your batting choices to experiment with different effects. A softer, lower loft batt will give you a more subtle effect. A really dense 20 ounce batt will give you super tight trapunto motifs. Make up a little sampler so that you can see exactly how each batt will behave, then you can choose which one works best for you. Just remember, though; you don t want to go too subtle. Trapunto is supposed to show!

12 Basting thread or water soluble thread. If the design is fairly complex and will require a lot of stitching, or if there are numerous designs to be stitched, I use water soluble thread for ease of removal. Match bobbin thread to the color of your quilt top. This thread will not be removed, so make sure it won t ghost through the top and mar the look of your finished quilt!

13 Most thread companies have a version of water soluble thread. It is easy to use, and most brands require no more than a few little tension tweaks to get it to run perfectly. Remember, when choosing which brand to buy, you get what you pay for. All water soluble threads are not created equal.

14 OK. Pay Attention Now, Because This Part Is Important! You will have two different products in your quilt, both of which have very specific removal needs. These products MUST be removed in the proper order, or chaos will ensue. The water soluble pen must be removed with cold water. Heat sets the marks and makes them permanent. As in forever. The water soluble thread requires *very* warm water to melt and remove it. Therefore, you absolutely positively must remove the pen marks first, and remove them thoroughly, before dunking the quilt in warm water to melt the thread. Don t forget this part.

15 When using a simple design which requires less stitching, or if I am only going to trapunto a couple of elements, I will baste my designs in place using a fine, strong white thread and then I ll just pull my stitches out later.

16 One or two pairs of sharp, small scissors. The keywords here are sharp and small. When trimming, you will be taking very short bites out of the fabric, so go with short blades for extra control.

17 Choose a suitable design. Now is not the time for the most elaborate design ever seen in Quiltdom. Remember, you re going to have to precisely trim the batting away from the areas that surround the design so don t get carried away. Clean, strong lines will work better than designs with tiny, fussy details.

18 Be creative in your design work! Use stencils, or parts of stencils, or a combination of bits and pieces of various stencils, to create a unique and one of a kind design. Combine templates and Pro Stitcher designs to create the look of perfect work. Make the design YOURS. If you re going to do the work of trapunto, make it worthwhile and create a quilt that is a standout, not a cookie cutter replica of someone else s work!

19 Let s Get Started I always spend a couple of minutes doing a rough sketch of my design plan to make sure it will work to my satisfaction. The last thing I want is to do all of this work and have the quilt turn out to be blah, so I take the time to be sure of my design ideas.

20 Please note: I am not talking about an elaborate mock-up. I just want to get the basic idea down, figure out my spacing, basically see if the design looks as good out of my head as it does in my head.

21 Once you re sure of your layout, it s time to mark. Remember, you can only line things up accurately if you mark them accurately, so take the time to do it right. Mark your stitching lines, your spacing lines, and your placement lines so everything ends up where it belongs. Crooked trapunto elements REALLY show! You will be stitching your trapunto designs out twice, so make sure you make the marks dark enough that you will be able to see them during both stitching passes.

22 If you are using a stencil, make sure you mark all elements of the stencil so there s no guesswork involved during stitching. You want to clearly see your lines so you know where to go. If you are going to use a digitized design make sure you accurately mark crosshairs and guidelines.

23 Sometimes your quilt makes it easy and has seamlines that create the X that marks the spot. Sometimes you have to do some manual marking.

24 Either way, you will need to stitch your second pass of stitching right on top of your first, so make it easy on yourself. The more guidelines you give yourself, the easier the job will be.

25 Load Up The Batting!

26 Place the quilt top on the batting and baste it into place at the top and down the sides to prevent shifting. Because this first pass of stitching is just a preliminary, it is not necessary to spend a lot of time fussing with tensioning the quilt. You just want it tight enough to keep it in place. If you over tighten the batting it will begin to pull apart, so keep a nice medium-loose tension on it.

27 When tensioning your thread, it will help in removal if you have loose tension, especially if you will be basting the first pass of stitching. Perfect tension will make it more difficult to rip, so this is the one time that bad tension is not only okay, it s great! The water soluble thread is fragile, so it will need a loose tension setting to prevent shredding. If you are stitching along and the thread starts to shred or break, loosen it up by a turn or two.

28 When Stitching, Use Care in Placement. This Will Make the Second Pass SO Much Easier! Because this is my first stitching pass, I have set my SPI to 8 for ease of removal. I would have gone with 6, but that would have led to squared-off circles.

29 The First Stitching Pass Is For Trapunto Elements Only. All other design work is saved for the second pass.

30 Time To Start Cutting Away the Excess (be careful!)

31 Remove the Bulky Excess First, To Get It Out Of the Way Then Do the Fine Work

32 When the Extra Batting Has All Been Trimmed Away It s Time For The Finish Work

33 When choosing the type of fill work you will use to surround your trapuntoed motifs, remember that the greater the contrast, the greater the pop. Straighter motifs will really sing when surrounded by curved fill. Curved lines are shown to greater advantage by straight fill work. You will want to use fairly tight fills for your background work. Really smash that quilt! This will cause your trapunto to lift dramatically from the quilt s surface.

34 When quilting is complete, it s time to remove your first pass of stitching. If you used plain thread to baste, you can simply pull those stitches out. If you used water soluble thread, you will need to use water to remove it. Remember what I said about getting the water soluble pen marks out first! Cold water removes the marks, warm water removes the thread.

35 Remember to block the quilt. Yes, I know you re tired of the quilt now and you want it to be done but don t skip this final step because it will really add a crisp and professional look to your project and will make your trapuntoed motifs jump right off the quilt. Blocking takes only a little bit of work, but it has a big impact and is well worth the effort! Besides, if you used water soluble thread, you have to get the quilt wet anyway so you might as well block. You ll thank me for this later.

36 Before Trapunto

37 After Trapunto

38 For more free information on blocking, and many other useful topics, be sure to visit the Learn page at Kimmyquilt.com Enter HQTRAPUNTO in the Comments section of the order form and receive a 20% discount on your purchase. Offer expires 8/15/2013

39 For an in-depth look at trapunto, read my three part series in Machine Quilting Unlimited magazine. (in the May/June, July/August, and September/October 2013 issues) Thanks for attending the Webinar! Use the promotional code HANDIQUILTER today through Thursday August 15 for a special subscription price on both of our magazines!***

40 You don t have to. A copy of this webinar will be on the HandiQuilter.com website under the Education tab. Just click on Webinars. 40

41 Just Added! Two More Educational Retreats Basic Oct. 6-9 Pro-Stitcher Oct. 9-12

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