 When I purchased the Romance pattern by Amanda Murphy Designs for Myra's quilt, Home Is Where the Hearts Are, it came as a kit with all the fabric to make the quilt top included. Since I had it, I decided to go ahead and make the quilt and use it as an opportunity to continue experimenting with some new techniques. I used Jane Sassaman's applique method involving ShirTailor fusible interfacing (see my journal entry about Fireworks). This time I decided to try applying the interfacing to the background fabric as well as all the applique shapes. Although I like the added stability it provided, there were a few issues:
I also used this piece to try machine trapunto again. When I made Home Is Where the Hearts Are I added one extra layer of wool batting under the heart shapes. It added a little extra puff, but they did not look as "stuffed" as the trapunto on my Purple Butterfly quilt. This time, I found a note I left for myself in the bag of batting scraps left over from the butterfly project saying to use two layers of Quilter's Dream Wool batting for trapunto. There wasn't enough Dream Wool in the scrap bag to do this whole project, so I pieced together some other scraps of unknown fiber content that had similar loft. I think it ended up being a combination of Dream Wool, Hobbs Wool, and some polyester bat. I whipstitched the scraps together, which was a pain and ended up not working well, so I won't do that again. Also, some of the batting scraps had a very sticky finish that made smooth free-motion stitching around the shapes difficult. I used Superior Vanish Extra wash away thread with off-white Aurifil thread in the bobbin to stitch around the shapes. This time, I did this with all of the shapes, not just the hearts. I had to re-whipstitch the batting pieces together, and even add some extra bits of batting where there were gaps between the scraps - what a pain! Here's what the back of the piece looked like after I finished trimming away the excess batting:  Next, I searched for backing fabric in my stash, but couldn't find anything I liked. I just don't tend to buy fabrics in colors that would coordinate with the ones in this kit. So, I decided to use up the remaining fabric from the kit and make a pieced back.
As mentioned above, I added a layer of fusible cotton batting between the top and the backing. Then I got to work free motion quilting between the shapes using Aurifil 50 wt thread - not my favorite because it generates a lot of lint in the bobbin case, but decided it was the best color match and weight for what I was doing. I found it difficult to work in between the shapes. And with the really stuffed trapunto, stitching close the shapes was hard. My darning foot kept bouncing off the shapes. Plus, when I forced it to stay close it added to the fraying of the edges of the shapes because of the added friction. Once the quilting was done, I soaked the piece to dissolve the wash away thread, then blocked it. I had a large piece of baffled cardboard about 3/8" thick. I pinned a layer of freezer paper shiny side up onto the cardboard to protect it, then pinned down the wet quilt. Once it was dry, I used the tip of a dry iron to smooth the wavy edges between pins as much as possible. Then I removed all the pins and used a steam iron to press the edges as flat as I could (avoiding the trapunto shapes, so as not to felt the wool batting inside of them). I have a tape measure with a hole in the end large enough to fit a wash away marking pen tip. I stuck a pin through the tape measure at the desired radius of the finished piece and used it like a compass to draw a circle around the outside where I wanted to trim. I stay stitched about 1/8" inside this line, using the longest setting for my machine's #1 stitch. Then I trimmed on the drawn line. One final steam pressing, and I had a perfectly flat piece. I finished the edge with bias binding cut 2-1/8" wide. At this point, this quilt has no intended home. I may keep it and use it on my formal dining table, I'm not sure yet.
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