Day 5, First Project – Kitty “Trapunto”

 Happy Day 5 of the Blog Challenge! Today’s theme is ‘first project’ – hmm, I have no photos of the first doll quilt I hand-pieced and hand-quilted way back when. The first project in my digital photo album was a piece I created soon after acquiring my HandiQuilter longarm machine.

Learning to use a longarm, as it turns out, leads to a whole new adventure with THREAD 🧵😍😉. For this crazy quilt featuring Keo, I played with every single type of purple thread sold by Superior Threads- 3-ply poly, silk, metallic and more. Here is a link to their current all-purple lineup which has grown 😃: https://www.superiorthreads.com/60/filter-products?Color=Purple

Here is my earlier blog discussion of the piece:

 
This little feral cutie has inspired a number of pieces in my studio.  One very fun way to bring your pet’s face to life is to print the image on translucent fabric (here, I printed in all purple since that was the color scheme).  Add extra batting beneath this portion of the quilt…here, I added 2 layers, a block-sized square and a kitty-head shaped piece.

The first stitching step here was to lightly thread-paint her face (I used very fine purple thread) to enhance details and shading.

Then, I spray-basted those extra pieces of batting in place before layering the whole piece with batting and backing.  

Using a very dense fill stitch around her face flattened the batting and created a great deal of depth to the portrait. This can also be very helpful if your subject is all black!  (I have been known to cheat and sneak extra batting in through slits in the back of the quilt if needed… 😉)
Prrrrrrrrrrrr