Created October 2009

Believe it or not, this was actually my very first wholecloth quilt design. I started it back when I knew nothing about trapunto, was still stippling everything to death, and didn't believe in prewashing fabric.

Needless to say, my first attempt at this wallhanging didn't go well! You can see in the picture to the right that the vase hardly shows at all against the white fabric.

So I took the original design, spruced it up a bit, and even created a quilting stencil so you can make one too!

I'm sure you're wondering how this can possibly be a wholecloth when it's obviously using different fabrics.

This is actually made using a technique called Shadow Trapunto.

Layers of colored felt and fabric were placed under organza and stitched with water soluble thread. The excess fabric was cut away, leaving it only in those areas it was meant to be.

The whole thing was then sandwiched and quilted so densely this quilt really does resemble cardboard. I didn't even have to use a walking foot to bind it! You don't have to quilt it so densely, but that's the way I love to quilt.

This was one of the first quilts I played with new filler designs on. I used following designs on this particular quilt:

Brain Coral

Echo Shell

Mussel Shell

Pebbling

McTavishing

I learned a lot with this piece, most notably how much (and how little) silk organza can take. The slightest mis-snip can cause holes in the organza that will always show in the finished piece, no matter how dense you quilt it.

While this might seem really annoying and ridiculous to bother with, I'm looking at it in a different light.

You see, for all my patience with free motion quilting, I'm not the biggest fan of applique. It's not that I can't do it, I can, but I get so picky and micromanaging with it that it takes forever.

Shadow trapunto allows you to use multiple fabrics to create the design exactly like applique, but without the raw edges or fuss and bother of turning the edges under.

From my experience working on this Vase of Hibiscus quilt, I decided to create a new technique called Reverse Shadow Trapunto, which I then tested on the Winter Wonderland Quilt.

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