Fourth finish in May!

I am pleased to say that I have finished another quilt.

This one started out with a book and a bee.

I was in the Modern Stitching Bee for a year with some lovely people.  The bee was to make modern blocks using the book Modern Blocks 99 Quilt Blocks from your Favourite Designers compiled by Susanne Woods.  

I picked the Arrowhead block designed by Wendy Hill and played with it.

Until I designed my Arrowhead Star block and asked my bee mates for half blocks as they are rather large!

It was fun at FQ Retreat 2013 as throughout I was given little fabric parcels with my half blocks in them. 

A long time passed as I pondered on how to put them together...

Then I finally got it thanks to looking at them on my design wall...

Love how there are some almost complete stars in the darker background fabric...
I decided to try something different when quilting this one.   I wanted to attempt Trapunto.  I added extra wadding behind each of the stars, stitching it in the ditch and trimming the wadding back to the seamline.  Then I layered and basted the quilt as normal.

Trapunto works best when the extra padded area is lightly quilted and the background densely quilted.  I tried to make the difference between my stars and the background where I attempted cosmic quilting - all solar flares, black holes and galaxies!

I quilted using my trusty #aurifil 28 in different colours matching the stars and several different greys for the background

I used a gorgeous Echino cottton/linen print on the back of this quilt and it didn't creep around like my velveteen backing - it stayed put though I did baste it with a whole lot of pins just in case.  The print came from Pink Castle Fabrics and as it wasn't quite wide enough I got some help from Fiona at Celtic Fusion Fabrics to find a natural linen that would work with it (perfect match I have to say) and added some coordinating solids!  I like the back almost as much as the front.  

I used monofilament or invisible thread in the bobbin so I just have a texture on the back.

Would I trapunto again?

I think so but I would 

• use higher loft wadding behind the area to be padded - maybe even that cheap thick poly wadding we are all a bit sniffy about or wool!
• use it in smaller areas
• lightly quilt the padded areas
• densely quilt the background areas - more even than I quilted here!
• consider basting the extra wadding with dissolvable thread!

The great thing about trapunto is if there is excess top fabric - I mean it doesn't quite lie flat - that excess can be hidden in the puff!  With lots of bias edges in this quilt it was easier to puff it up rather then nail it or rather quilt it flat.

Hope you give trapunto a try!