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.

cut a piece of muslin shape & pin on the back of the top. hand or machine stitch the piece on top that you want to stuff. then cut your slit in the muslin piece on the back, stuff it & sew your slit closed. then sandwich as usual...hope it turns out!

Do an internet search on Trapunto. That's the name of the technique you are describing.

Yes, I did the internet search before posting on board; as I said, everything came up fairly small with a lot of intricate quilting or embroidery, this child's quilt will have pretty large appliques, not nearly like searches brought up.

Thank you all for tips; I think I will fool around, first with double batting on back before making slit; if it were a wall hanging, I would have no trouble doing the slit and stuffing but with washing, it gives me pause. You folks are great with support!

See if you can get your hands on this book:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Essential-.../dp/0715305697

It has a complete chapter on stuffed trapunto and several techniques with how to achieve it. With wonderful pictures. What you describe can be done by cutting a slit in the backing and stuffing in additional batting or stuffing. The trick is you need to outline quilt the area to be stuffed so the stuffing stays put. You can also stuff with a fat yarn as demonstrated on this blog:
http://quiltsalott.blogspot.com/2011...o-by-hand.html

Another option you can try is applique the prestuffed figures to the quilt after it is completed.

http://www.fivegreenacres.com/wp/200...ique-tutorial/

Perhaps you can apply the techniques presented in this video to your project

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk9jBcbDWz8

You can definitely do the faux-trapunto around larger appliques. You want to stitch the applique to the background as usual. Then, put a piece of batting underneath that is a few inches larger than your applique. Stitch just around your applique (on the top), and then trim the excess batting from the back. Repeat as many times as needed for any applique you want to puff up. When finished, put in a full layer of batting & quilt. Going around the outside of the applique is where you need to use the small fillers. It's the filler around the outside that makes it puff because overquilting flattens out the batting around the applique, making the applique with the 2x batting stand out more than the rest of the quilt. The only thing you need to be concerned with for the applique itself is whether it needs some interior quilting in order to make it more secure &, of course, you need to take into consideration how closely your batting needs to be quilted.

Traditional trapunto requires stuffing something into the applique & you could certainly do that. It is more work to stuff the applique, but then you don't need all the extra stitching around the applique to get it to puff. For the letters on this quilt, I made the applique itself 2 parts, then I cut a slit in the blue to stuff it. When finished, I stitched the whole thing down to my quilt top.
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