Patsy Thompson is an amazing quilt artist and I adore her! She is also a phenomenal teacher and I have learned so much from her since the very first time I ever tried free-motion quilting. Patsy gave me encouragement and advice and answered every question I had as I worked my way through her free-motion quilting playlist of videos on YouTube. I owe her a lot!
Of course I was thrilled when Patsy partnered with Craftsy to bring her unique hyper-quilting technique to the on-line teaching platform. In the class, Ultimate Free-Motion Quilting with Patsy Thompson, she shares her stunning way of quilting easy designs with different threads for amazing results. Patsy also explains different ways of doing trapunto, or stuffed quilting. Finally, she combines everything into a gorgeously complex looking project that is fun and simple to do after completing the lessons.
I used my new Sweet 16 to practice stitching out Patsy's designs. This first piece is an example of simple hyper-quilting created by quilting a second line of the design in a different, contrasting thread. Once I practiced the shape of the flower it was very easy to do. I later realized that as a lefty it was easier for me to do the 'thumb' of the mitten shape on the right rather than the left. You can always change a quilting design so that it makes sense and becomes natural to you. I love the way it looks! I used some shiny polyselect thread in my test piece. It has a pretty sheen that looks great and works well with this technique.
Next, I was very excited to try some trapunto work. I used a wreath stencil I had in my workshop and a chalk pencil to transfer the design. I had Patsy on my i-pad with me every step of the way and it was so fun to try wash-away thread to add the trapunto layer. I was never confident following a drawn shape while I quilt but now, the stitches just flow from my needle and I was very pleased with the results. Ok, well it doesn't really matter since the thread is going to wash away anyway, but the feathers on the wreath looked really cool! I made use of one of those sample pieces of batting I got in the little Warm Company samplers and tried out the hi-loft product. It was perfect for this technique and wow, is the wreath ever puffy! After that excess batting is trimmed away the block is sandwiched in the normal fashion with a regular layer of batting and some backing fabric. Stitching the second time with 'real' thread was easy since I just traced over the stitching I already did. I used pink thread and then echoed the shape with a gold thread. I would have liked my echo lines to be closer together so I'm glad this was a test piece.
I tried to do some of Patsy's 'plumify' fill design around the outside of the feathers. I think it turned out okay (although maybe not small enough) but because I used matching thread it was really hard to see where I was going - and had been - on the front. It's also impossible to even see the stitching on the front but you can get the idea of the design when you look at the back. That's as far as I got with this piece before DD took over my space for a sleepover.
I did get as far as preparing a stencil of a double wreath which is similar to the project Patsy shares in the final lesson of the class. With this piece I will combine both the hyperquilting and trapunto to make a spectacularly colourful piece of quilted art. I can't wait to get back to stitching. Please check out Patsy's class if you'd like to learn how to accomplish ultimate free-motion quilting through hyper-quilting and trapunto - it's a super class and Patsy is so funny and enjoyable.
Here are a few more photos of the process...
I've been saying that I need to find a stencil for a feather wreath like that for my current quilt. But you quilted it so PERFECT! Sheesh! I think I'll skip the stencil and send you a plane ticket so you can come do my quilting! ;)
Posted by: Maureen | April 18, 2015 at 11:42 PM