This week has been more printing and reading about and practicing trapunto techniques. All in all a very enjoyable couple of days.

I decided on the double wedding ring pattern for the quilt for my great grandmother Cassie.

Here is an example of the pattern from the Brooklyn Museum by an unknown maker circa 1930:

The one I’m going to make will technically be a “mock” Double Wedding Ring quilt because I’m thinking the semi circles will be filled in.

I tried my hand at the trapunto quilting technique since I wasn’t sure how this would work with paper. I trimmed off some of the prints that I had been working on and played around with the scraps. I wasn’t sure how the machine quilting would work through a layer of batting. I also wanted to try out different thread colors. Trapunto quilting is often done on white fabric with white thread to draw attention to the dimensionality of the quilting rather than the pattern of the fabric. I’ve been using black thread throughout this project because I want the quilt patterns to stand out as much as possible.   So I tried some scraps with white thread and some with black.

Here is a sample of each. Front view:

And the back to show the depth and the quilting a bit better.

I actually like how the test pieces came out, I think I will kepp them and use them as bookmarks.

I’ve done enough practice work to be convinced that the trapunto technique will work with the prints. And I have decided I will keep using the black thread. Both for consistency with the rest of the quilts and for how it draws attention to the graphic nature of the designs. I like how the black stitched line mimics the drawn line.

Next week more printing and maybe some dipping. Here’s hoping it’s cool.