Yesterday, I told you about our adventures on Tanna Island, and served you up some colour inspiration straight from the depths of Mt. Yasur. I hope you got a sense of how spectacular the volcano tour was. It would be a shame not to honour that experience with a full attempt at quilt inspiration.
Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 8
Today being Sunday has given me more time to work on this post than most days. So I have happily been working on translating my volcano quilt idea mentioned yesterday into a visual representation to show you today.
First, I gathered the inspiration photos I needed. Apart from the ridiculously large colour board from yesterday, I also needed some visual references for the sea surrounding Tanna Island and the jungle that grows right up to the base of the volcano.
Here are the photos that I chose:
The jungle on Tanna Island.The rock formations and grey sides of the Mt Yasur volcano.The coast of Tanna Island, with volcanic sand beach.
How was I inspired by Tanna Island?
I wanted to capture all of the colours of Tanna Island in a design that could be pieced into a quilt. I thought the design should be evocative of both the volcano and the other areas of Tanna Island.
My Tanna Island quilt idea
So, I set up a grid of half-square triangles and coloured them in to represent the ocean, the sands, the jungle, the sides of Mt Yasur, the ash/steam and sulphur plumes, and the after-dark fireworks show. To tie it all together and add interest, I set myself the goal of having a secondary design. I used colour value contrast to create the illusion of diamonds and zigzags throughout the design.
Quilting Tanna Island?
I am not sure that I will ever get to making this Tanna Island quilt. One Vanuatu quilt on the go is probably quite enough! And while it is a simple matter to design a quilt with so many colours, it is quite another to translate it into real fabrics. This design would be a BIG project. But all that said, not all inspiration needs to be acted upon to be useful or good. Every time you stretch yourself to think outside your usual quilting habits you grow your skills and reinforce resources to draw on in the future. Ideas have a habit of percolating until they are needed one day. I’ll be letting “Tanna Island” percolate for a time. 🙂
What about you? Do you keep a journal or record of quilt ideas you might like to explore one day? In some ways, that is what this 31 days of everyday quilt inspiration slot is becoming for me. An ideas journal, with you to keep me focused on getting the ideas recorded. Thanks for being here!
P.S. The latest Art with Fabric Blog Hop starts tomorrow! FInally! My post is on Friday, but you can find the rest of the week’s itinerary in the meantime at Tweety Loves Quilting. It should be a really interesting collection. See you there! 🙂
Dandelion Shadows: How to Shadow Trapunto with Felt.
Did you know there are an amazing number ways of achieving the stuffed quilting known as trapunto? When I was at school we were only taught one method. Snip the back of your work after stitching the trapunto outlines, stuff in some extra padding and sew the hole back up again. Of all the trapunto methods I now know, this would be my least recommended!
Trapunto quilting can be achieved by hand or machine. If you want to do trapunto by hand, read this fabulous article by Quilts A Lot and watch this video she recommends. This is a much nicer method than the slit and stitch I was taught. I would like to give it a go, “one day”.
Actually, even if you don’t want to do trapunto/french boutis by hand, these links are worth a look. The trapunto wedding rings quilt of Quilts A Lot is amazing, and the more techniques you know about, the more idea resources you’ll have to use in all your designs. 🙂
Machine Trapunto
Probably the most common method of trapunto I see these days is created by machine free-motion stitching onto fabric layered over polyester wadding. The wadding is then clipped to the trapunto shape before a quilt sandwich is made. There are many experts out there on this, including Geta Grama. I am not one of them, but I have given this type of trapunto a go recently on my Dream Big mini quilt. Now I am playing with shadow trapunto.
Shadow Trapunto
Shadow trapunto is when the top fabric and clipped wadding is laid directly over a second fabric rather than straight onto the quilt batting. The fabric between the polyester wadding and the quilt batting is expected to show through the top layer, except where the trapunto lies. Here the wadding obscures the fabric design underneath, creating a “shadow”. Thus the trapunto design has even more visual impact than ordinary trapunto.
Cross-section through a shadow trapunto quilt sandwich
The remainder of this blog post is a description of how I did the Dandelion Shadows trapunto with felt.
Felt Shadow Trapunto Cushion Project: materials
What you need: which fabrics to choose
The first step of a shadow trapunto project is to choose the top fabric and the feature fabric. The main requirement for the top fabric is that it needs to be partially see-through. You can use very transparent fabrics like tulle, or more opaque fabrics, like cotton lawn. Choose white or a very pale colour. For this project I wanted a subtle effect, so I choose white cotton lawn for its partially opaque nature.
The most important requirement for the feature fabric for shadow trapunto is that there is good contrast within the print. Light coloured prints often perform very well. Saturated prints that look bright but have low colour value contrast do not give very pleasing results. If in doubt, lay your top fabric over potential feature fabrics until you find one that shows through as you would like.
The feature fabric for my Dandelion Shadows project practically chose itself. While I was out shopping I noticed this hexagon print fabric, and it sparked an idea. It is “Grecian Bath House Tiles” by Emma & Mila.
Grecian Bath House Tiles fabric by Emma and Mila
Don’t forget, of course, that you’ll also need quilt batting and a backing for your project, seperate from the trapunto supplies.
What you need: which trapunto stuffing to choose
Finally, you need a material for the trapunto stuffing. To do a project with the method I am describing here, you will need a thick non-fraying fabric that you can cut into shapes without stitching it down first. I used felt, but thick fleece or similar would also work. The result is a much flatter trapunto effect than the traditional method…. perhaps it is “modern trapunto”. I like both effects…. but I would use them in different contexts. Choose a colour that works with your feature and top fabrics, because the idea is that you will partially see the trapunto stuffing through the top layer.
How much of everything you will need:
For this cushion (about 42cm square) I used:
– 50cm WOF of the feature fabric, cut into 2x 50cm² pieces.
– 50cm² white cotton lawn
– scraps of yellow and white felt
– 50cm² low-loft polyester batting
I didn’t use a backing because I intended to make a cushion out of the trapunto piece, so a backing would just be hidden inside the cushion. However, if you wish to back your trapunto, by all means do so.
My furry helper approving materials for the shadow trapunto.Time to do something else for a while. These materials are taken!
Felt Shadow Trapunto Cushion Project: creating the trapunto quilt sandwich
How to create your trapunto shapes:
Once you have chosen your trapunto materials (and rescued them from your furry quilting friends), the next job is to produce the felt shapes to make the trapunto design. I chose to overlay the printed hexagons on the feature fabric with felt hexagons of the same size. You could exploit any medium or large scale fabric print in the same way. Or you can create any original design that you are willing to cut out and glue down onto your feature fabric. Either draw your design in reverse onto the back of your felt, or trace your reversed design onto freezer paper and use these templates to cut out your felt pieces.
Freezer paper adheres really well to felt…. who knew?!
I used freezer paper. This was actually a bit of an experiment, because I thought that the freezer paper would not stick to felt more than once, due to the great amount of fluff that remains on the freezer paper once the felt is peeled away. But I got at least 4 re-uses out of each freezer paper template, and it would have been more, but I didn’t require any more felt hexagons.
Attaching the felt to the feature fabric:
Elmer’s glue works well to tack the felt shapes down, but use it sparingly.
To get the felt accurately attached to the feature fabric I used a very thin smear of Elmer’s school glue (available in Officeworks here in Australia) to position the pieces. Once the glue was tacky enough that the pieces couldn’t shift, I flipped the project over and hot ironed from the back. This sets the glue hard so it cannot damage my sewing machine. However, if I want to re-position any pieces, they just gently peel off. Elmer’s glue is so fantastic!
Take care to use just a little so it doesn’t soak through to the front of the felt, especially if you are using a highly transparent top fabric…. but if it does, Elmer’s glue washes out, so as long as you can wash your project, it shouldn’t matter.
Once the pieces are securely attached and ironed dry, layer your work over the quilt batting and backing (optional for cushions). Then layer the top fabric (cotton lawn) over the top of everything else.
Cotton lawn laid over my felt shapes glued to my feature fabric, and the quilt batting.
Secure all layers with your favourite basting method (in my case, quilting pins).
Dandelion Shadows trapunto pin-basted
Felt Shadow Trapunto Cushion Project: quilting
Now it is time to quilt. I chose to quilt around the trapunto with a pebble, spiral and feathers design I saw on Karen Miller’s work posted in the Free Motion Quilting Frenzy facebook group (if you are into FMQ – join this group!!). There was no particular reason to use this FMQ design, except that I really wanted to try it. Any dense fill you like will do.
I densely quilted the background around the trapunto to help the feature fabric show throughClose-up of the FMQThe pebble quilting is easier to see from the back
I finished off the quilting by adding some stems and leaves to the trapunto flowers and dandelion clock. These are quilted in a very pale grey-green. The idea is that they don’t detract from the trapunto and are only really noticeable if you are closely looking at the piece. Ghost details, if you wish.
Felt Shadow Trapunto Cushion Project: finishing off the cushion cover construction
Once I was happy with my trapunto piece, I squared up the sides. I cut the remaining piece of my feature fabric in half and hemmed one long edge on both pieces. I then sewed these pieces to the sides of the trapunto sample.
Dandelion Shadows trapunto with fabric attached for cushion envelope.
I then folded the flaps over the trapunto piece, right sides together, so that the cushion backing pieces overlapped by 3-4 inches. I then sewed up the top and bottom of the quilt cover and trimmed the excess from the seams.
Envelope Cushion cover ready to sew.
Here is the back once it was turned right sides out and filled with a pillow form.
And the finished cushion 🙂
I hope these instructions are clear enough. If you have been following my blog lately, you’ll know that I am writing things in a bigger hurry than usual. If you have any questions, please ask and I’ll endeavour to answer and/or edit to clear things up.
Shadow trapunto with felt is a lot faster and less stressful than the more traditional kind. No risk of accidentally snipping fabric or stitches. But it does give a different effect, so it’s not a replacement for stuffed trapunto. I really like the effect this gives. I will be doing this again, for sure.
What do you think? Are you going to give this a go? Have you already done trapunto using this method? I’d love to know what you made.
Now, I’m going to have to love and leave you….. we have a family day in between all the work we are doing here in Vanuatu. Going to see an active volcano!!!!!! I am hoping tomorrow’s “everyday” quilt inspiration slot will be anything but! xx
Yesterday we treated ourselves to lunch at a resort, situated just past one of the Vanuatu villages where we are working to develop emergency telecommunications. It turned out to be a good idea, as the owner is an Aussie who was able to help us out with quite a variety of local intel.
While we were waiting for lunch, my next quilting inspiration wandered up to greet us (actually to try to steal our soft drinks and our shoe laces).
A moment after this shot, that empty coke can was toast.
Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 6
The resort has two pet lorikeets, who wander among the guests biting shoelaces and climbing backpacks. I admit, at the time I assumed they were rainbow lorikeets like the birds we have back at home in Australia. They are indeed similar in size and colour and behave just as poorly: loud, rude and bossy! But now looking at the photos, it is clear that they have a different colour pattern that is more muted than the Australian rainbow lorikeet. I believe they are a subspecies of Coconut Lorikeet.
Bottom’s up! Clearly these birds have partied before!Smug success…. yes, you are well aware you aren’t welcome on the backpack, bird!
How was I inspired by the Coconut Lorikeet?
Because these characters were so persistent about sharing our resources, I had plenty of opportunity to take all sorts of photos. And it will definitely be fun to create appliqués from some of the poses. Like I did for the hermit crab yesterday. Sadly I don’t have time to mock you up an example at the moment, so you will have to settle for a colour board and some cheeky bird pictures so I can go to bed. Here’s one last picture of the lorikeets checking out Paul’s telecommunications equipment.
Paul wanted a photo of the birds on his telecommunications box. They tested the antennas just like their Australian cousins would. But they were super unimpressed and moved on straight away.
The Coconut Lorikeets were pretty funny and annoying all at the same time….. much like a pair of toddlers on too much sugar!
Aghhh. Slow internet! No internet! Slow internet! Great Intern….. Nope, dropped out again! That is the reality here the last 36 hours. Writing what I can offline… and then madly uploading if I see signal. So, I apologise for all the typos, comments ending up in the wrong place and other weird stuff…… I think I have only embarrassed myself once so far :(. It’ll be a while before I take good internet at a sane time of day for granted again!
Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday: Day 4
Tsunami escape route sign
The overwhelmed, under-spec and oh-so-vulnerable communications network here is the reason why our family is currently in Vanuatu. Hubby, Paul, is developing a cheap, easy to deploy, phone-based technology that will allow villages to maintain their own intra-village text-message services independently of cellular networks. We even hope to connect two neighbouring villages. We are aiming for a system that can provide rudimentary communications when the cellular network is down and where it doesn’t reach. Which is too often and in too many places. Vanuatu tops the natural disaster at risk list for the entire world – being vulnerable to earthquake, hurricane, volcano, and tsunami, with low capacity to prepare and rebuild.
Inspired by the Pandanus Fruit
Unripe fruit on a Pandanus plant in Vanuatu
Yesterday and today we travelled out of Port Vila again to the two small villages where we are doing a pilot study of Paul’s telecommunications system. One of the very noticeable plants along the roadside out of Port Vila are the Pandanus trees, with their big green fruits the size of rockmelons (cantaloupe). Currently the fruits are unripe – they will turn a robust orange when they are edible. I have been told locally that they are good for pregnant women, although I didn’t find out why.
Anyway, it is solely the visual texture of these fruits that has aroused my interest today. I haven’t actually been able to touch one – they are too high up.
How was I inspired by the Pandanus Fruit?
Because the Pandanus Fruit has interesting shapes and textures, I was inspired to try an abstract representation that I could piece and appliqué. Here is my Pandanus Fruit-inspired art quilt design:
Abstract pandanus quilt design
I used the colours I can see in my photo. I think the large background space would be good for some FMQ practice. Maybe try out some Vanuatu themed motifs.
Hope to see you again tomorrow!
P.S. If you missed the beginning of my 31 Days of Everyday Quilt Inspiration, you can find it here.
P.P.S. While I have internet, here is a picture of the telecommunications boxes we are installing and testing.
See the white box with the three antennas on the pole? That is the technology we are testing, installed on the roof of a house in Vanuatu.
Colour Inspiration Tuesday – it’s time for our usual weekly slot of colour and design conversation 🙂
Today we are conjuring up quilt ideas with the assistance of the “Wattle You Make?” colour scheme and a corresponding fabric.
Last minute edit: This post was pre-written long before I knew about the Write 31 Days challenge we have just started. So it uses Unsplash photos, not my own happy snaps. BUT… as you will see, this post is actually about being inspired by a fabulous everyday item – a fresh piece of fabric. So with a little tweaking I am letting it pass as Day 3 of my Finding Quilt Inspiration in the Everyday series. If you have no idea what I am talking about, you may want to read the first post in the new 31 day series.
Colour Inspiration Tuesday: Wattle You Make?
The “Wattle You Make?” colour palette is brilliant yellow, grey and greyed blue-green. The colours of Australian wattle in flower. These are everyday colours in Australia at the moment, as early spring is when the wattles are out in full force.
But the real reason I have chosen these colours today is because I have a piece of this fabric:
A fun, coincidental fact….. the wattle species in the photo of today’s colour board is widely used as food for bees in making honey…. and this fabric definitely reminds me of bee hives!
This fabric is “Bathhouse Tiles Aqua” by Emma & Mila. The hexagons are about 1 1/4″ from corner to opposite corner.
Like all good quilters, I saw this fabric while I was shopping for something else. At the time I was actually shopping for the fabrics to finish my daughter’s Jewel Tone Diamonds tumbling blocks quilt. I had to have a piece of this to play with because I was instantly inspired. (I was actually very self-controlled and only got half a metre!)
Sometimes it is fun to choose a fabric as a starting point and wonder what you could make with it. Let your imagination take you places you may have never otherwise thought to go. Especially if the fabric is not your usual style (which definitely applies for me here). What would you make if you suddenly found yourself in possession of this particular fabric? Who would it be for? When I first saw this fabric I was taken with the hexagon lattice print. And I immediately thought it would be fun to accentuate some of the hexagons with trapunto. Shadow trapunto to be precise.
How was I inspired? What did I make?
Do you remember how I said that at our Handi Quilter club we had trapunto homework? And that Heather had upped the ante, adding shadow trapunto to the techniques we should try? Well, I did my trapunto homework – that was the “Dream Big” mini quilt. Now I have also done my shadow trapunto homework. It is a cushion. Always experimenting, I used felt instead of wadding for the trapunto. The trapunto design was directly inspired by the fabric print. I am hoping to have a more detailed discussion/tutorial post written up about it later in the week.
Sometimes a fabric just begs to be made into a particular design…
While you wait for my shadow trapunto cushion post, let’s explore more yellow and greyed green combinations…
Once I started thinking about this colour combination, I realised it is not uncommon in nature. In fact, yellow and greyed green combinations are everywhere…..
I could have continued down this path for ages, with daffodils, daisies, a yellow frog and all sorts. But I’ll stop here. I have that tutorial to write for you by the end of the week! But isn’t the sunflower pretty?! I could very happily do a sunflower quilt in these colours……
Today’s Photo Credit
Do you like the photos I used today? Today’s stock photos are from Unsplash.com. Unsplash is a collection of free, high resolution, “do what you want with” photos. No credit is demanded, but I hope you will agree is very deserved. So, I will tell you the stock photos were provided by: Leticia Delboy (wattle), Alisa Anton (tulips) and Asgeir Pall Juliusson (sunflower). Click on the badges below to explore these photographer’s other photos. Leticia Delboy Asgeir Pall Juliusson Alisa Anton
Your turn to tell….
Do you let the fabrics sometimes dictate your quilts? Have you ever done a sunflower quilt? Know of a sunflower quilt pattern you’d recommend? Or have you ever done a yellow and green quilt?
I’ll tell you a quick story about a green and yellow quilt…… My first quilt jealousy was over a green and yellow quilt! When I was in year 10 of high school (decades ago) one of my friends did a Home Ec topic that I didn’t sign up for because it was about caring for babies…… eeeeeuuuuuch. But she had the last laugh because she made a quilt as part of her curriculum. It was another 16 years until I actually made my first quilt. After having had 2 babies (who weren’t eeeeeuuuuuch after all). If you are thinking of trying quilting, I suggest you get moving faster than I did!
Come on, tell me what you’d make with the hexagon print fabric. Or just say Hi. I love comments and finding out who’s visiting.
P.S. Don’t forget….. the upcoming Art with Fabric Blog Hop (next week) and also the new Splash of Color quilt along (starts today October 3!)
Today being Sunday has given me more time to work on this post than most days. So I have happily been working on translating my volcano quilt idea mentioned yesterday into a visual representation to show you today.
What about you? Do you keep a journal or record of quilt ideas you might like to explore one day? In some ways, that is what this 31 days of everyday quilt inspiration slot is becoming for me. An ideas journal, with you to keep me focused on getting the ideas recorded. Thanks for being here! 
Dandelion Shadows: How to Shadow Trapunto with Felt.
Hope to see you again tomorrow!
