Trapunto — raised areas from an outline

What is trapunto?

A raised area made by trapping padding under the fabric. Where 3D Puff builds height with foam under a satin column, trapunto builds it with wadding inside a shape: the outline is sewn twice, and the padding goes in between.

The sequence on the machine is: sew the outline into the wadding, cut the wadding back along that line, lay the top fabric over it, sew the same outline again. What is left is a soft, quilted relief with a crisp edge — the look of a hand-quilted monogram rather than a puffed-up letter.

Why is it a “section” and not a setting on the object?

Because both passes have to be the same line. If they were two objects you edited by hand, one curve change would put them out of register and the padding would show along the edge. In a trapunto section both passes come from one geometry, so they cannot drift apart.

It is the same idea as a puff section: the machine stops, the marks and the extra passes belong to the shape as a whole, so they live on a layer group with its own inspector.

How do I make one?

Draw the outline with the running stitch, then select it and choose Trapunto. You will find it:

on the selection bar when a group row is selected (the scissors button), or
in the Convert menu — from the object inspector, the group inspector, or a multi-selection.

Several outlines can go into one section. The new group is called Trapunto and is selected for you.

Only a running stitch qualifies. A satin column or a fill cannot become trapunto — the technique needs a line to sew twice, not a covered surface — and the entry simply is not offered for them.

What does the machine actually do?

With the defaults, and in this order:

Position mark 1 and Position mark 2 — two L-shaped corners, top left and bottom right of the shape, sewn on the bare stabiliser.
Machine stop — lay the wadding on and tape it down.
Shaping pass — the outline sewn into the wadding, as a short single run by default and one millimetre inside your line, so the wadding is not pinched under the seam. This is the line you cut along.
Machine stop — cut the wadding back and lay the top fabric over it.
Your outline — the same path a second time, now through the fabric, exactly where you drew it.

Everything is one thread colour, and the stops are plain machine stops, not colour changes.

The section does not baste the wadding down. Soft padding tears when you pull a basting thread out of it, so the material is taped instead — that is your job at the machine, and it is the one step the file cannot do for you.

What are the position marks for?

They are a target to lay the wadding against. The machine sews them before anything else, on the empty stabiliser, so you can align a piece of padding without guessing where the shape will land.

Two settings control them, in the group inspector under Position marks:

Distance from the shape — how far outside the shape the corners sit. 0 to 50 mm, 10 mm by default.
Leg length — how long each arm of the L is. 2 to 30 mm, 8 mm by default.

The marks never leave the hoop. If the distance you asked for would push them outside, they sit as far out as they fit and the caption below the sliders says so.

Turning Sew position marks off removes them — and with them the first machine stop, because that pause rides on the last mark. You then get one stop instead of two, and you lay the wadding on before you start.

Can I change the shaping pass, and how far inside the seam it sews?

Yes, both, and both sit in the shaping pass’s row in the layer list.

Its own stitch: tap the row and set Stitch length and Passes right there. New sections start with a 1.5 mm single run — a perforation that lets you tear or cut the wadding cleanly. An outline drawn with a bean stitch keeps its bean stitch on the fabric; the shaping pass no longer copies it.
Inset from the seam, −10 to +10 mm: how far inside your line the wadding is cut. New sections start at 1 mm, so the wadding has room under the seam. The line you drew is the seam on the fabric and sews exactly where its nodes are — shape it like any other running stitch, sharpen a corner, round one off — and the shaping pass is derived from it, so the two never drift apart. A rounded corner on the shaping pass does not matter: it lies under the fabric, and wadding does not fit into a sharp tip anyway.

A hole — the middle of an O, the bowls of a B — moves the other way: the wadding lies outside that ring, so its shaping pass sews that far outside the line. StitchPencil works out which outlines are holes from the way they sit inside each other; an island inside a hole counts as solid again.

The inset needs a closed outline; on an open line the slider is disabled, because there is no inside. If the inset would collapse or split a thin shape, the wadding is cut on the seam line and the design check tells you.

Can I turn the pauses off?

Yes — Pause for the hand work in the group inspector. Off means the file runs straight through and you stop the machine yourself at the right moment. Leave it on unless you have a reason: the stops are what make the technique work unattended up to the point where hands are needed.

How do I get back out?

Plain run (in the Convert menu, with the object rows selected) gives you the bare outline back, unchanged.
Expand to layers (group inspector) turns every generated step into an ordinary editable layer and removes the recipe. Use this when you want to hand-tune one of the passes — after that they are separate objects, and keeping them in register is up to you.

Those are the only two conversions a trapunto section offers: Satin and Fill leave the menu while it exists. Widening the outline into a band or flooding it into a surface would leave the section sewing its marks, its stops and a shaping pass for a shape that no longer has a line to cut the wadding along.

What is the basting brush, and is it part of this?

No — it is its own stitch preset, useful with trapunto but independent of it. Pick Basting in the run stitch library and draw: you get a long-stitch line, 8 mm, one pass, with no tie-in or tie-off, so it pulls out cleanly afterwards. Use it to hold an appliqué or a piece of fabric down while the rest sews.

A basting line is marked as such: a teal badge in the layer row, a dashed teal line on the canvas, and a stitch length range of 4 to 12 mm instead of the usual run range. It always sews one pass — a doubled line is thread you cannot pull out again.

The design check watches for the one mistake that ruins it: if another object stitches over your basting before the next machine stop, it warns you, because once thread lies across the basting you can no longer pull it out.

How does trapunto differ from 3D Puff?

	3D Puff	Trapunto
Built from	satin columns	running-stitch outlines
Material	embroidery foam, under the stitching	wadding, under the fabric
The shape sews	once, densely, over the foam	twice, from one geometry
Result	a hard, domed relief	a soft, quilted relief
Hand work	tear the foam away afterwards	lay in, remove, cover

Both pin the sewing order for the whole design while they exist, so the colour optimiser cannot reorder the phases.