Trapunto back from the dead

NOTE: I’m not sure I can do a blog post or newsletter next week. It is my guild’s show, I’m doing Fashion Show, I’m getting ready for a very busy spring and I’m working on the quilt judging thing.  I’m kind of overwhelmed.

Let’s start at the beginning. My love of trapunto has been greatly inspired by two quilts:

I saw this on Pinterest, an antique quilt of unknown origin. Oh my, I just love this! In all honesty, it’s probably boutis, not trapunto. Boutis is a hand stitched and corded technique, a traditional French craft. Never mind that it might not be trapunto, it was the beginning of my trapunto path.

I saw this piece online…

and then I saw it IN PERSON (!) at the International Quilt Museum in Lincoln, NE during the 2017 Studio Art Quilt Associates Conference. My. World. Stopped. when I saw that quilt! It was stunning and magnificent. Look at that edge treatment, oh my. Look at the gorgeous trapunto.

Fast forward a bit and I started this trapunto piece years ago, 2018. It languished. It had two big problems.

One, I had foolishly put it out in the sun to dry. It is silk dupioni and you just don’t do that. Duh. The color went awful – this putrid, sickly yellowy blue with traces of almost gray. Ick.

The second problem was that at the time, I did not know how to accomplish the edge treatment I wanted. I was inspired by a quilt by Kathleen V. Stuart that I adoooooored (above)! The edge treatment on that quilt was stunning and I wanted my own version of that. I tried a variety of things and at the time, nothing worked the way I wanted it to.

It sat and sat in time out, poor thing. In late 2020, in a Hail Mary move, I applied thickened dye to it. Well actually my friend Linda Waddle came up with the idea. She saw that I was unhappy with the color of the faded silk and that I had already put a ton of time into that quilt. She suggested applying thickened dye. What the heck? What was there to lose?

Here you can see the undyed part on the edge. It was a brilliant move, one that I would not have thought of. I had no experience with thickened dye, so I was grateful to Linda for not only the idea, but her help with the process. She created the color, added the thickener, and showed/helped me apply it. I liked the result!

It has a slightly mottled look; it is not even. I love that!

Two unexpected things happened as a result of the dying:

One – Something that I didn’t think about was that the wetting of the fabric dissolved the water soluble thread used to create trapunto by machine. When that went away, the extra trapunto layers of batting were left adrift. So I was left with areas like the above, undefined, unstitched. I had to first figure out the design that was there before, and then stitch out that design. It all worked out in the end. I have now stitched all those places and I’m ready for the edge treatment.

Two – The dye also dyed the thread! I was having a hard time figuring out what thread I used so that I could match it. Then it dawned on me that the cotton thread had of course taken up the dye also. I now had a new color of thread! Here you can see me trying to get the color and weight right. The thread also absorbed moisture and became thicker. Oy.

I have no idea why I cut out these hunks of fabric. I think I was trying to get a sample for some reason. I sure hope these missing pieces don’t interfere with my edge treatment!

A few detail shots:

Yeah, the color is way off in the photo, but I’m trying to show the dimension of the trapunto.

I really like the way this came out.

I have a few ideas about my edge treatment. I am considering keeping these as scallops. And, I have another idea that I’m playing with. Stay tuned. The reality is that I am going into a multi-month period of intense teaching/travel/family stuff. It may be awhile before I get to this again.

I’ll be linking up:
Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday