Working on a New Trapunto Class (Part 2)

If you missed Part 1 of "Working on a New Trapunto Class, here it is....

This class is tentatively titled "Positive/Negative: Adding Color to Trapunto by Machine". My plan is to have two of the blocks feature the green fabric showing through the white background and the other two having the green show through in the motif area of the quilting. Hopefully, this will make more sense as I work through it.

The first thing I had to do was to choose my fabrics: I already knew I was going to use the grass green and white solids, so I pulled a few other fabrics out of my stash to complement them. From left to right: Green fabric that will "shadow" through, white broadcloth, light green batik for sashing, variegated light/dark green print for border and small green print for binding.

Haven't decided on the backing yet, but I have a number of fun candidates!

The stencil that I am going to use for the trapunto is 7-1/4" square, so I cut my blocks 8-1/2" square to include seam allowances and to leave a little bit of room around the design; I decided that I wanted 1-1/2" wide sashings, so cut three 2" strips for that; for borders, I cut three 3-1/2" strips.

Using a 1/4" seam allowance throughout, I sashed my plain blocks and then put the border on.



The stencil that I have chosen here is HH2 from The Stencil Company. I'll center it in each square and mark it using water-soluble marker.

Once your markers are out of the package, the easiest way to tell what you've got is by the color of the barrel: blue is water soluble, which washes out; purple is air soluble, which gradually fades away (or not so gradually, depending on your climate, whether it's Tuesday and the phases of the moon).

The packaging usually says that air soluble marks will last from 24 to 48 hours, but my experience is that the marks fade away sooner rather than later and they most likely will not last through the entire quilting process. I used an air soluble one once for trapunto -- OOPS!