Large appliques "stuffed" does anyone know?
 

Am making a "magical" quilt for great granddaughter and it will consist of fairly large appliques of unicorns, fairies, princess (s) and a castle. I have never done any stuffing (trapunto) on a quilt and have tried researching this but I find all these absolutely beautiful trapunto quilts usually consisting of lots of machine quilting or embroidery; nothing at all like I have in mind. I just wanted to stuff the bodies of the unicorns; dresses of princess and fairies but will not be doing a lot of machine quilting; most will be hand quilting. My appliques are hand applique (turned) and what I would like to do is put slit in back of quilt top and stuff them before embroidering the face detail etc. Any advice?? Thank you all so much for any tips.

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.

slit from behind and stuff and whip stitch closed. I've used this method for years and it always turns out great. good luck. please show us your work when you're done.

I think in the "olden days" they may have made a small slit and shoved stuffing in, then hand stitched the slit closed. I just went back and read what you said, and that's what you thought to do too. So it should work!

My teacher taught us to use a piece of gauze. Sew around the gauze till it covers the back of whatever you are stuffing. Use the Hallmark yarn with a large needle and pull the yarn thru, cut it off, and stuff it in. Do this until it is full. Sometimes an arm or small area needs to be filled and this is the way to do it. I put mine in a hoop to keep it neat and tight. Then when you have it done, then lay the batting and backing onto it. With the Hallmark yarn, you have the option of pulling different colors in. I have used this on decorative pillows with candlewick too. It seems like years ago already. Have fun.

Ragamuffin,

I am intrigued by the technique you describe, but I'm not following your instructions. Can you write a bit more? (Photos would be ideal!)

Lynnie, your method works for SMALL areas, but I think antylu is doing large enough areas that they might get lumpy when washed. High loft bonded batting, secured at the edges and details, sounds like a safer bet. I once made a 3' wall quilt in an animal shape using that method successfully.

I wanted mine puffier than what I could get with batting, so I filled with WonderFil. The trick is to make sure to leave a little bit of slack in your applique to make room for the filling. As Lynn said, just whip stitch from the slit closed when you're done (or if you are like me & want to really be sure that the hole is closed, you can throw in a few stitches, iron on a piece of matching fabric with fusible & then blanket stitch that down so the backing is super secure).

I've also seen what Ragamuffin recommended & it looks very nice. They did a demo of it at a local yarn shop using white cotton fabric with hand-dyed wool yarn and a curved tapestry needle and an awl. If I had had the money, I would have done that. Here's a link to trapunto done with a combo of dyed & white (matching) yarn: http://www.designerstitches.net/Shad...ther%20350.gif

I have always done trapunto by putting batting behind sewing then trimming. When all done sandwiching as normal.i do feel a line of quilting around trapunto to stabilise.