Wholecloth Quilting McTavish Style

Do you wonder how to quilt a wholecloth trapunto quilt? Learn how to create your own original wholecloth masterpiece for hand or machine quilting, using trapunto and intriguing "McTavishing" background filler.

Inspiration for creating original designs may be collected from a wide variety of sources including architectural elements, Victorian homes, stone or wood scrollwork, fence and iron works, churches, ceiling tiles, books, museums, appliqué floral patterns, tombstones, tapestries, embroidery, rug patterns, and plastic quilting stencils with or without modifications.

Materials:
large sheets of paper and black sharp point markers for hand drawings
large stash of plastic pre-made stencils or original paper quilting designs
light-box for motifs and designs transfer
long rulers, tape measure, T-bars and rotary cutting rulers
water-soluble blue marking pens (no fine point)
eraser pens
water-soluble thread for trapunto cut-away

Preparing wholecloth for marking
Steps:

1. Wash the fabric and check for flaws.

2. Find the side of the fabric that looks like the front.

3. Press fabric and square up to desired size.

4. Cut edges of fabric even with the grain if possible.

5. Using a blue water-soluble pen, mark a line on the outside border edge approximately 1/2 inch to 1 inch from the raw edges; be sure that all sides are the correct dimension for the size quilt you are making and are parallel with the grain of the fabric. Aligning a ruler against this blue line will give you a nice guide to 45-degree angle if needed. Fold the fabric into quarters making certain that the fold lines go from center to center of opposing sides. Pinch hard to mark the true center of the quilt. Open the quilt and mark the center where you pinched with a blue pen.

6. Mark your quilt with registration lines using diagonals lines, going center-to-center and corner-to-corner with your blue pen.

7. Audition some of your designs/stencils on the fabric to see what arrangement is pleasing together and will fit well into the available space. Enlarge or reduce patterns if necessary.

8. Measure the width of the outer border and determine how many repeats are needed of the border pattern you wish to use. If you will need to adjust the repeats to fill the available space, decide how this can best be done (enlarging, reducing, stretching, adding an extra design element, etc.). When you have made this change, you can determine how wide your border will need to be.

9. Plan your center motif and then decide how you will fill the area between the center motif and the border. How will you fill the other empty spaces? Do you need to add more frames, motifs or background fillers?

10. Decide where your design might be enhanced with trapunto and what background techniques will be best to highlight your designs as well as pushing your trapunto up.

12. Walk away from your quilt after marking and get a better perspective of it from a distance. I do this many times during the marking process.

13. Make sure your quilt top will not bleed, such as a batik fabric, if you use any water-soluble products. My experience with some water-soluble products is that they will dissolve in most lukewarm to hot waters. Hot water will cause shrinking to a quilt, so I recommend a warm-water soak to remove the water-soluble thread product. The blue pen product may reappear to the surface or settle on the quilt batting or backing if the quilt isn't soaked with enough water or if too little water is used to remove the products. If the pen markings reappear, it is likely that not enough water was used to dissolve the product through the quilt layers. Move the quilt through water to ensure the product does not stay in the batting, for example, I like to dunk the quilt in a tub. Some water-soluble threads do not vanish in cold water. Warm to hot water works best for water-soluble thread.

14. After marking the quilt top, the next stage is to trapunto the motifs or areas you wish to be dominate in the quilt. You will need to outline the motifs with water-soluble thread, using only a thick polyester batting.

15. Trim away the excess polyester batting from the backside, taking care not to cut the quilt top.

16. Quilt as desired.