Do you quilt with two layers of batting? For this quilt-as-you-go quilt I used for some blocks cotton+a fluffy polyester batting and this gives such a wonderful definition to my quilting.
But this time I wanted to use cotton+wool and I wanted to mimic the trapunto look without stitching trapunto. So here is a small faux-trapunto sample.
I traced the design on fabric and outlined it several times (3, 4 times) with a thick thread: Aurifil 28wt. This way, the design is highlighted, but I did it also to cover the lines of the design, drawn with a permanent marker! I was in a hurry and did not want to wash the quilt so I used a permanent marker!
Then I added a dense quilting inside the design! And it mean it, when I say “dense”. I started with peebles, but could not do it at the tiny size I wanted and the look wasn’t what I wanted so I switched to something else: what you (can’t) see around that small heart it’s just tiny loops. I will make a little video, because when I started, I had no idea how to do this dense quilting, and you really need to do something that is comfortable and has a steady rhythm. You don’t have to change the direction of quilting (like we do when quilting peebles) – this makes quilting much easier!
In the end, I quilted peebles, though, but bigger!
The quilting on the background was done with Aurifil 50wt; I did not want to change the color of the fabric with a heavyweight thread! And the beautiful fabric is from the Gelato collection (EE Schenck).
And how about the triple paisley motif? It is so easy to quilt it around a design, like I did- you don’t have to change the direction of quilting.
Many applique designs can be used for this type of quilting. This design is from one of my applique patterns.
And do you remember the trapunto piece I made a few weeks ago?
Isn’t wonderful that quilting offers us so many options??

I dream about a quilt made with faux trapunto heart blocks, joined with the quilt as you go technique.
Happy quilting!
These came out wonderful! Nice technique!
You do beautiful work!
Is there a name for the dense stitches done around the hearts? I’ve seen it done on quilts but don’t know what to call it.