Trapunto Quilting: Session 3 - Machine Trapunto

Our next method of Trapunto quilting is machine Trapunto. Now this is done similar to what we just did. But rather than using stuffing, we're going to use extra layers of batting. So I have my sample here. You can see I have my top layer of fabric.

I've got batting and I've got a backing fabric. But then my hearts, my shape here has some extra batting so it stands up more off the surface of the quilt. So we talked a little bit about batting in the intro here. But I just wanna go over it again because it is important to sort of know what batting you're using when it comes to these methods. Now this is a method where your batting is going to be completely sandwiched between two layers of fabric so you don't have to worry about seeing it or seeing through it.

But you may want to think about how thick your shape is going to be. This is a low loft, a craft batting. It is very thin. There's really not a whole lot to it. This one is a much thicker, heavier, higher loft batting, so it's a lot thicker.

So I would use something either like this or just several layers of this batting. So when I'm actually adding it and creating my extra puffy shape here, I'm sort of getting more for my effort. So I'm not putting just one really thin layer, then doing all the quilt sewing and then realizing well, it's not really as puffed up as I wanted it to be. I'd rather add extra layers, add some more, and then have to maybe do some more quilting to make it flatten out a little bit. But I just wanna make sure that I'm actually providing enough batting underneath that my shape is lifted as much as I want.

So to start off, we would have just a piece of fabric, and I have lightly just drawn my shape on here. I'm gonna do a heart shape for this example. And I like to draw in place just 'cause I'm not necessarily very good at free-handing a heart shape. So draw whatever shape that you want to quilt, and then you're going to put your batting underneath. Again, I have just two layers of my craft batting here.

I would layer that underneath my shape. This is a good time where you can use up sort of small scraps of batting. I could be using an even smaller piece just so it's enough that it does cover my shape is all I really need. Then I would do some stitching. Now these are the only two layers that I need to be stitching right now, my top layer of fabric and my batting.

Because of this and because I have drawn my shape onto my fabric, this means that my batting is down near the feed dogs of my machine. Now sometimes your feed dogs can catch on your batting depending on the type of feed dog you have. Mine have lots of little grippers on them, so I do find that my machine catches on the batting. So to combat that, I'm just using a piece of paper. I'll simply lay that underneath.

And then I know that my presser feet, everything is gonna slide very nicely on that piece of paper. You can use just a piece of printer paper, lined paper, tissue paper, pattern paper, whatever you have, just to lay that behind your shape to stitch it. I'm gonna go ahead and put a couple pins in place to hold all of my layers here. And then I can take it over to my machine and stitch it. I'm not necessarily worried about getting my pins all the way through that piece of paper on the back because it's really just sort of something extra I'm adding and I can lay it up there if I need.

I really just wanna make sure my batting doesn't shift too much while I'm stitching. Okay, I've got that pin in place. And now you get to decide what foot you wanna use while you're doing your stitching. I have my regular presser foot on here. You could absolutely use your free motion foot if you're more comfortable with free motion.

It depends on the complexity of the shape you're using. Since my heart is pretty basic, I'm just going to leave it with my regular presser foot on and my feet dogs engaged, and just go all the way around my drawn line. So I can go ahead and stitch all the way around. You can see how it's really gliding very nicely. My machine's not catching on that batting at all.

And I'm just going all the way around my shape. Hit the bottom of my heart, so I'm gonna pivot. All the way around. And I wanna make sure that I end my stitching where I began. So I'm going to overlap by just a couple stitches to hold this in place.

Or if you wanted, you could absolutely do a backstitch instead. And take it off, and then we're going to trim our threads. Now I'm just showing you how to do a basic shape. If you were doing a more complicated say quilting design, then you would use the same standard quilting practices that you would use normally. So you would tie your thread off how you would normally tie it off when you're quilting at the beginning and the end.

But since I'm just demonstrating a little shape here, I just did a simple backstitch. Again, I'm using white threads, so it stands out on this fabric. You could use a purple on purple if you wanted it to blend in. Now all I need to do is I can remove my paper. And all I have to do is tear that off right along the stitching line.

And it comes off really easy. Your stitches perforated that paper enough that you can just simply tear it away like so. Get all our little pieces. And now I need to cut away my extra batting because the whole point of this Trapunto method is to have extra layers of batting behind just the shape I want it to be behind. So I'm gonna take either my sharp fabric scissors or my smaller snips here depending on the size of the shape.

And I'm just going to carefully cut only the batting away from the outside of my shape. Now normally when I'm using a pair of scissors like this or fabric shares, I really stress using the entire length of the blade when cutting 'cause that's how you get your best cut on fabric. But in this case, I'm actually using small, little snips because I wanna make sure that I'm not cutting through my fabric. So I am getting my scissors in place, checking to make sure I'm behind only the batting, and then continuing on. So again, just like when we were doing the traditional Trapunto, we don't wanna accidentally cut through our top layer or we'd have to start over.

So I can just do little snips, checking to make sure I'm only cutting away the batting. Do that all the way around our shape. Okay, and as you're getting into maybe the point of the heart, if you want to use- These scissors are a little bit curved. They can be a little easier. Sometimes you can do that too.

And I also find that when you're doing this, it's a lot easier to make sure that you are only cutting the batting if you leave your fabric down on your mat. If I were to pick this up and try to cut it, then I have a higher risk of cutting the fabric on the back because it's harder to actually tell where the fabric is at all times. So if I leave it constantly laying flat against my cutting mat, I have a better chance of it not accidentally being cut. So we're almost done here. Come around our shape like so.

Okay, we have all of our batting trimmed away from the outset of our shape. We're now ready to use this as if it were just another piece of fabric. So by that I mean I would actually take it, layer it with a piece of batting, backing fabric, and I'm ready to just use it as either the whole quilt itself or as a block in a quilt. Now I have another example here I wanna show you because it's a little bit more of an intricate design. This has many more sections to it than our simple heart shape.

This is another template that will be provided as a download with this class so you can practice this if you want. But it's done the same way in that I have layered my top layer of fabric with batting. I used a piece of paper on the back. I did my stitching, went ahead and tore that paper off. And now I would simply cut away on this one as well.

Now since there are so many different petals... Petals coming out from the center of our flower, you still want to only cut around the outside perimeter of the entire shape. So I wouldn't wanna come in here and try and cut any of these petals away because I still want the whole shape to have some extra texture to it. So again, I would just take just like we did with the heart, and I'm gonna take my scissors and again just cut the batting away from the perimeter of the outside of the shape. Now when you actually go to layer your piece of fabric with your batting and your backing fabric to do some quilting, it's a little bit easier to see how to quilt a shape like the heart because it's just one shape.

It only has one outside line. There's nothing complicated in the middle. So you can do any kind of quilting you want around the outside edge. When it comes to a more intricate design like this, you have a couple of different options. You could either do quilting only around the outside edge, and then this entire flower shape itself stands up.

Or you can take and do quilting on the inside. So what I've done is again I trimmed the batting away from the outside of my flower. Went ahead and layered it with another piece of batting on my backing fabric. And then rather than doing the quilting on the outside, I did the quilting on the inside of all the little petals to make it look more flower-like. Not only did this add more texture to my actual flower but by doing the quilting on the inside of the petals, you can see that the outside of all these petals is what has the little extra texture to it.

So rather than this whole flour being one lifted design, you have the outsides of the pedals being lifted which gives it a little bit more designed to it. Now if this was my final piece and I was ready to do the rest of the quilting and the binding, I would go ahead and still do some sort of quilting in this background whether that's stipple quilting, some leaves, something like that, just to make sure that the outside of these large petals get the same attention that the smaller petals did with the quilting on the outside of it. So I still want to add some out here. But this is a way that you can add quilting to a more intricate design by adding it to the inside. Now what's really fun about this type of Trapunto quilting is that you can actually also combine it with applique.

So if we go back to our heart shape that we have right here, you can see it is just the top layer of fabric. It's got our batting on the back, and all of it's cut out around the outside of the shape. And now maybe I decide I don't want just my stitched shape. I actually want this to be a different piece of fabric or a different color. You can add applique right at this point.

So all they would do is take and cut the same shape out of a different piece of fabric. Layer it on top of my shape. On this case, I would make sure that I have a shape that covers all of my stitching line. You can see I got a little bit off when I was stitching along my line. But then I would go ahead and add my applique.

And I would do that when I have just this top piece of fabric because then I can still use this, and layer it, and quilt however I want to. So if you're going to combine this method with applique, this is the time that you would want to do it. You've already cut away your batting, add your shape to it. Do whatever kind of applicant method you want whether that's doing a blanket stitch around the outside edge, you could do a satin stitch. Any kind of methods that you wanna do, and then use this just like you have your other pieces once they've been Trapuntoed.

So I have just a little example here of ones that I've done that I used the applique on. This is just a cute little wall hanging that I'm gonna put together. I'll eventually bind these. And I may decide to hang them all out in one piece, maybe in a square like this. And these letters will also be provided as a download with this class if you wanna try it out.

But you can see I have my background that I added my Trapunto to, added my applique of these letters and the heart, and then layered them and did some quilting. What you wanna think about when you're doing applique or even this kind of Trapunto is the color of your fabric. So if you look at this here, if you look at it from an angle or if you're standing up here and you can feel it, you can definitely tell that the letters and the heart has some extra stuffing behind them, and that they stand out more than the background. But because the background is so busy, it kind of hides it a little bit. So if I were to turn this over like this, I just have a plain piece of...

Make the E so you can read it, plain piece of fabric here on the back, the Trapuntoed section actually stands out a lot more because it's a plain color and a plain color, versus our plain color and something really busy. So if you want your Trapunto to stand out even more, think about your fabric colors when you're planning out your project and maybe don't pick something quite as busy as these polka dots. But it still turns out pretty cute in the end, and you can make this fun, little project. So that is machine Trapunto. It is done about the same way as traditional.

Rather than stuffing, we're layering batting. You still have to have some sort of batting underneath it like we did here. One, two, three layers, however much you want. Stitch your shape, cut it away, and then layer and quilt this as normal. And you have completed either a small cloth quilt for some sort of wall hanging, or you can use this and combine it into a bunch of different blocks and make a much larger quilt that has been done with machine Trapunto.

So now we're gonna move on and see how you can do hand Trapunto.