Reverse Shadow Trapunto Explained

by Leah Day

Reverse Shadow Trapunto is a technique I created largely due to my dislike for appliqué. I love the look of curving lines and precise angles, but really hate the time consuming, messy, complicated nature of most appliqué techniques.

But I love trapunto and the art of clipping fabric carefully to reveal the inner design. After experimenting with regular shadow trapunto, I kept getting holes in my top fabric.

Not willing to let the imperfections go, I played with the technique until I discovered that by simply reversing the blocks, you can get a clean, appliquéd look with no holes and no mess. Talk about convenient!

Why is this called Reverse Shadow Trapunto?

Regular Shadow Trapunto is created by drawing the design on the top layer of fabric, in this case, the delicate silk organza.

After drawing the design on the organza, you would then stitch the motif and cut it out.

I found after much trial and error, that one single miss-snip could cause noticeable holes to appear in the silk organza.

By reversing the technique so that the design, stitching, and clipping is done on the background fabric, not the organza, you eliminate the chances of clipping through the top and speed up the process at the same time.

So here's how make a Reverse Shadow Trapunto block:

First mark your design on the wrong side of your background fabric using a water soluble pen on light fabric or the Sewline ceramic pencil on dark fabric.

Next layer 1 piece of felt under your background fabric, leaving your background wrong side up so you can still see the marking.

Thread your machine with water soluble thread in the bobbin and regular thread in the top.

Carefully stitch along your marked line to form your design.

Using scissors with a blunt tip, carefully clip the felt so that only the design remains in felt. You may need to use sharp tipped scissors to get into the tight spots, but be very careful not to clip your background fabric.

Once the whole design is clipped out perfectly along the stitched line, you're now ready to quilt your block.

First layer the block with a batting and backing as normal so that the felt design is on top.

Before inserting any pins, add a layer of silk organza to the top of the block. The organza will stabilize and encase all the raw edges from the felt design after the water soluble thread dissolves.

Baste carefully (silk organza is delicate), and then quilt the outline of the design, being careful to stitch exactly over your previous stitching.

Fill in the background area with dense filler designs of your choice.

Once the quilting is complete, soak the block in water to remove the water soluble thread. Block your piece by laying it on a flat surface and securing it square with pins.

Allow to dry, then trim to the correct size.

What are the limitations of this technique?

No technique is perfect and will work in all applications. This technique would not be suited to a bed quilt due to the dense level of quilting needed to secure all the layers of the quilt.

The silk organza would also render this a technique used only on wall quilts as needs to be handled with care.

The final limitation is size. A Reverse Shadow Trapunto quilt will not be able to exceed 55" wide because silk organza is not produced in wider widths.

If you're working by individual blocks, like on the Winter Wonderland Quilt, of course this would not be an issue.

But if you were creating a wholecloth quilt, you will need to keep your quilt under 55" wide. Any wider and you will have to piece the organza together, which would be extremely noticeable.

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