This is a timely question. I am currently trying to give dimension to an owl. After a couple of huge fails I figured it out. I laid a piece of highloft batting behind the owl image and stitched all around it and the details like the eyes and feathers.Then I trimmed the extra batting away. Next I will layer with normal batting and quilt some background fillers. Things I learned the first time...do not use a marker that needs to be removed with the iron because when I did it flattened out my owl. Hope this helps.