#40 Trapunto Sunflower

#40: Trapunto Sunflower
Finished: 10/6/12
Techniques: whole cloth, trapunto, stippling, free-motion quilting.
Size: 12 1/2" x 12 1/2"

Description: Trapunto is the technique of sewing a design onto two layers of fabric, then cutting slits into the under-layer and inserting stuffing or batting, causing a raised effect. The slits are then hand-stitched back together. I varied from the traditional as I did not do the hand-stitching part, but rather placed the two layers (plus trapunto) onto a layer of batting and backing fabric and proceeded with the quilting. Because this is a mini-quilt, I figured I could get away with this departure.

Although I could have used printed fabric and appliqué to create the sunflower, I went with the whole cloth design in white simply for its elegance. The raised effect of the trapunto was enhanced by stippling, or a very dense meandering pattern around the sunflower. When I finished stippling, I found that it didn't get close enough to the trapunto design for my satisfaction, so I straight stitched around the outer edge of the sunflower again which provided the definition I was looking for.

I found stuffing the batting into the underside of the design very tedious work. There were a total of 80 individual slits, including the 32 tiny squares in the center of the sunflower. But as tedious as it was, I like the overall effect. This mini-quilt definitely looks better in reality than in the picture. I think a large quilt done in this design would look spectacular, but someone other than me would have to do it. (But you never know).