QUILTsocial | Issue 02 Winter 2014-15

AQ
uilted
S
nowflake
Kathy K. Wylie
Quilted Snowflake
We’ve been exploring a variety of machine
cutwork techniques while making the
lacy snowflake, snowflake quilt block, and
stained glass snowflake. Each technique
involved tracing a snowflake design onto
water-soluble stabilizer, stitching it to fabric,
cutting out the design, and satin-stitching
over the cut-out edges. In a fraction of the
time, we were able to create the look of
heirloom embroidery. We’re going to take
a slightly different approach and make a
quilted snowflake with cut-away trapunto.
Trapunto adds marvelous dimension to
quilts. It’s defined as “quilting that has an
embossed design produced by outlining
the pattern with single stitches and then
padding it with yarn or cotton”. Originally,
trapunto was done by slitting the backing
fabric in order to stuff the design with batting.
The slit was then slip-stitched closed
or covered with a second backing fabric.
With “cut-away trapunto”, the extra stuffing
is added before the quilt is layered and
quilted.
It occurred to me the same Sulky Ultra
Solvy that we’ve been using for our cutwork
snowflakes could be used as a quilting
template. We can trace the snowflake
onto the Solvy, pin it on the quilt, stitch,
then soak the quilt to dissolve the Solvy.
While I still consider this an excellent idea, I
discovered that Ultra Solvy is not the only
wash-away stabilizer available from Sulky.
I decided to try a new one (to me): Sticky
Fabri-Solvy.
This stabilizer is brilliant! It comes on a
roll or in a 1-yard package or in 8-1⁄2" x 11"
sheets that run through your printer. As the
name would suggest, it looks like white
fabric (not clear, like Ultra Solvy) and the
back is sticky. How wonderful for positioning
it onto the quilt layers! And it dissolves
in water. Fantastic!
Sticky Fabri-Solvy
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winter 2014/2015