Grey Hexes Whole Cloth Quilt with Trapunto

Project: Grey Hexes Wall/Lap Quilt with Trapunto

Materials

Front Fabric: 1 Yard of Grey Hexes print on Petal Cotton ($19/yd)

Backing & Facing Fabric: 1.5 yards from my stash

Batting - enough for the whole quilt plus additional for the trapunto parts

Thread - Wonderfil Rinse ‘N Gone water soluble thread for the trapunto parts, and Aurifil 50wt for the quilting & facing

Process

Preparation

I prewashed these fabrics - this is optional, and a habit that carried over from my garment sewing days. I no longer pre-wash most quilt fabrics. I almost always press & starch using Mary Ellen’s Best Press.

Trapunto

I determined which parts of the design I wanted to have the extra loft - in this case, the darkest hexagons. I made a paper template of the shape and used it to cut out pieces of batting just about the same size & shape - just a smidge smaller all around. Then, using water soluble thread in the needle and regular thread in the bobbin (it will be hidden inside the quilt, but a light neutral is a good choice), I sewed those pieces to the wrong side of the fabric, right under the darkest hexagons. I used a longer stitch length than I would for quilting.

Basting

I spray basted this quilt using homemade spray baste. I got the recipe from String & Story; I keep it in a large spray bottle in my studio and so far it’s kept for months without any issues.

Quilting Plan

This can be done in different ways, whether analog (e.g., tracing paper and a pencil over a paper copy of the design) or digital. This time, I went digital. I opened the image file of the design in Procreate on my iPad and used my Apple Pencil to sketch out several different ideas.

Quilting

I used my Juki TL18-QVP to quilt this project, all with the walking foot.

Facing

I was pretty sure I wanted this to be a wall hanging, so I opted for a facing instead of a binding, to get a really clean, finished look where the quilting and design go all the way to the edges. I love Audrey’s tutorial over at Cotton and Bourbon, as well as the one Allie (Exhausted Octopus) provides in her Sea Glass Quilt Class.

The last step was to rinse out the water soluble thread.

Uh-oh!

After I was finished - I think actually after I faced it - my mom saw it and asked how I was going to keep the extra batting pieces from shifting around (moms think of everything!!). I quilted pretty close to, but not on or all around, the darkest hexagons, and now the water soluble thread wasn’t holding them in place! Granted, for a wall hanging, it’s probably not going anywhere, but I did plan to wash it, and I’d hate for those extra bits that I so carefully placed to get all bunched up inside the quilt!

I ended up tacking them down to the backing with teeny tiny stitches, probably 6-8 stitches per hexagon. I made sure to get some corners and some in the middle of the shapes.

Thoughts:

I neglected to get really good photos of the finished product before gifting it to dear friends…I’ll update if I get a photo of it in its new home!

Next time around I’d add more layers of batting in the trapunto parts, as well as possibly some denser quilting so they really pop (and to help hold the trapunto in place!). I’m also interested in experimenting with different types of batting. I hear wool is really lofty.

I think experimenting with a different fabric type would be interesting as well - the petal cotton gets nice and soft after washing but I wonder if either poplin or lawn, with their super crisp finish, might make the trapunto pop more.