when I was a girl, my first knowledge of trapunto was with a kitchen towel of birds. it was sewn to a loose weave backing, the birds outlined with stitches, and then stuffed through that from the loose weave back. many years ago, i saw a quilter stitch around the trapunto areas directly on a puffy batting. then the non-trapunto areas were cut away. the whole thing was then placed on regular batting and quilted as usual. so many different ways to accomplish the look.