Carolina Lily top finished

Adding the borders has turned it quite suddenly into a large quilt! Hope you like it - I am very happy with how it has come together and a bit sad to have finished. The applique handwork on the border was relaxing and wonderful to watch it evolve - bit like a vine growing in the garden !

Now for the quilting plans.
I talked in an earlier post about adding hand trapunto wreaths in the blank squares.

Well -the plan to hand trapunto has sadly been ditched. I got the wool and needles, researched the wonderful work and generous tutorials done by Tim and Janet and had a practise stitching. But the arthritis in my hands did not cooperate. The tugging/gripping action soon became quite painful on a sample block - probably poor technique on my part too. So disappointing - but I have to be realistic - I'd never get through 15 blocks like that.

So ...after a lengthy period of sulking about that...I soldiered on with plans to give machine trapunto a go. 

I want to keep the quilt soft and pliable so am trying to avoid my past experience with machine trapunto where the quilts became rather stiff and boardlike. Clearly I'd have to do a sample block or two to experiment - nuisance, but might be major regrets if I don't!

Marking the wreath and quilt grid on a sample square block of background fabric

I quake at the thought of marking quilts - have had bad experiences with marks not coming out in the past. But I can't see how to easily avoid marking for this quilt. So the practise blocks will also be a good chance to try out some new Berol pens - just to make sure they wash out. 

Trapunto batting pinned under top fabric

I'm experimenting with using some left over soft bamboo batting for the trapunto - because it is so floppy and flexible - might make the trapunto less rigid...who knows ...just a theory. As you can see this is not a tutorial - just showing what I tried :)

The batting needs to be stitched to the wreath (only the wreath will have trapunto work). I used dissolving thread - so it will disappear when the final quilting is done.  I find this thread can be a pain to adjust the sewing machine tension correctly - to avoid the thread constantly breaking. So I just hand stitched this part - just inside the quilting line on the outside outline of the wreath and also on the inner outline - quick and easy.

Hand stitched dissolving thread inside quilt line

Then - the tricky bit - trimming the batting close to these stitches on the back.

Bamboo batting trimmed close to trapunto stitching

Then I made the usual quilt sandwich with the wool/poly batting that I generally use in my quilts.

Next I machine quilted the block. I decided to only quilt a 1" grid outside the wreath as it looked enough to me - lying flat nicely despite the trapunto. 

Machine quilted ready to wash

I put the block in with a normal cold washload of "whites", normal detergent etc. Here it is dry - and Yay! the pen washed out completely - such a relief. And the dissolving thread has gone too. 

I love the look and feel of it - soft  and flexible and as close as I can get to the hand-quilted look (don't start me on how much I wish I could hand quilt! The arthritis is such a pain.)

But I can see that the trapunto is a tad wrinkly - certainly not as defined as is commonly seen. So I will do another block with  more wadding in the wreath and report back soon. Sounds tedious but it really did not take long at all - and such a breeze to make a tiny quilt!