Friday, December 12, 2008

Trapunto revisited



The second two photos show the as yet "unstuffed" length of the knotwork. I drew the design on Warm and Natural batting, then sitched the unders and overs in a straight stitch through all the layers, backtacking at each stop. To make the section leading onto the fabric (as opposed to the edge) I used a stitch on my Janome that is straight on one side and a multi width zig zag on the other. I had hoped that the stitching would give enough dimension, but decided to add yarn to create more. I trimmed the rest of the batting away close to the zig zag stitching.
For the trapunto, I opened up the start of each line with a seam ripper and pulled acrylic yarn through to the end of that line. I read somewhere that acrylic is better than wool or cotton. It doesn't pack down like wool and lose dimension, nor is it hard and high to sew through like cotton. I used two strand of a worsted weight.
The result has a few puckers from the amount of shape of the design, but this is such a soft wool I hope to be able to press them out to some degree.
I am making the same style coat in another fabric first and then will get to this one. Practicality won out and I am making the warm one first.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

MP,

Thanks for the details about the trapunto. I too have read/heard that the acrylic yarn is the best option for the right height/longevity of the design. Thanks for sharing this will all of us.

Karen