How to Create Easy Embroidery Effects, Part 2: Puffy Foam & Trapunto

Follow these simple steps to add dimension to basic embroidery designs.
Oct 1, 2008

These small bits of puffy foam sticking through finished stitches would be less noticeable if the foam was red. The fastest and easiest way to draw these "fringies" back inside the stitches is to apply just enough heat with a heat gun.

This month we will continue to look at processes in embroidery that are a little outside of the norm. (Editor's Note: The Hands On Embroidery Technique column in the September 2008 issue explored appliqué and tasseling.) While some of these processes are popular, like 3-D foam, there are other special techniques, like trapunto, that are less well known. Most of these are pretty easy to pull off, as the complicated work is done in the digitizing.

Of the various effects, perhaps the most difficult is the 3-D or puffy foam. The digitizing is pretty tricky, but embroidering it is fairly straightforward. Here is how the process works:

Anything that is supposed to look flat should be sewn first. The machine is then stopped.

A piece of foam large enough to cover the entire area is laid on top of the fabric. As the machine sews over the foam, the needle penetrations perforate the foam while the thread stretches over the top of it.

For each different color or thickness of foam, the machine is stopped just before that section. The first foam is removed and the new foam is applied. When the design is finished, excess foam is simply torn away.

Foam comes in various colors and thicknesses. To gain even more thickness, you can use two pieces of foam stacked on top of each other. You want to use a foam color similar to that of the thread being sewn.

The key to using foam is making it cut when it is sewn. As a result, the stitch counts in puffy foam designs are about twice that of regular designs. The higher stitch count is just part of it. On the machine, one way to help this along is with your needle selection. Make sure you are using a normal (sharp) point needle. You might even consider going up a size in needle — to an 80/12.

After the foam is torn away, there may still be a few fringe pieces of foam that stick out through the stitches. This is why foam is available in several different colors and why you should choose a foam color as close as possible to the thread color being sewn. This will make the most visible "fringies" less noticeable.

However, even when using this technique of matching foam color and thread color, you may still have some noticeable fringies show up. There are a few methods you can use to eliminate them.

One is to take a needle and poke the protruding foam bits back through the threads. However, this can be time consuming and tedious. Another common way is to apply heat (i.e., with a heat gun) to the foam. Done properly, the foam will draw up from the heat, eliminating the fringies. Just be careful not to apply too much heat or apply it for too long. There's a temperature beyond the melting point of foam that will make polyester thread draw up and even break. So, as soon as you see the foam fringies draw back inside the stitches, promptly remove the heat.

As mentioned earlier, puffy designs can be somewhat tricky to digitize. There are a few unique characteristics besides the fact that they have at least twice as many stitches as a regular design.

One unique attribute is the way ends of columns are closed off. It goes along with cutting the foam for the design. The ends of columns normally are opened, allowing the foam to stick out the ends. These must be capped off with stitches to prevent this from happening.

When creating puffy designs, also minimize the stitches in the middle of the foam. The point of using foam is to make the stitches stand as high as possible. Stitching in the middle of the foam — be it underlay or topstitching — tends to flatten the foam. This is why you typically see wide satin stitches on these designs.

Because of these wider stitches and the higher stitch count, puffy foam designs are not recommended for all types of materials. I have seen them used on T-shirts and such, but after those items are washed a couple of times, the stitching starts to create holes in the garment. Also, the puffy embroidery works best on dense materials that will not be handled or touched as much.

I believe this is one of the reasons that puffy foam embroidery has found a niche in the cap industry. The denser material of a buckram-backed ball cap is great for foam. Couple this with the fact that a cap sits up on your head where it won't be handled a lot makes caps the perfect placement for this type of specialty embroidery.

Trapunto
In contrast to puffy foam — one of the more complicated specialty embroidery processes — trapunto is one of the simplest.

Trapunto is a little-known technique that can actually be used on many different designs — even stock designs. Unlike puffy foam, it doesn't really require any special digitizing techniques. It also can be used on virtually any material, although it is commonly found on garments with a large decoration area, such as sweat shirts. Also, the softer and thicker the material, the better this process works.

Trapunto is the virtual opposite of puffy foam embroidery. You place puffy foam on top of the fabric before sewing to raise the embroidery off of the garment. Trapunto is the process of puffing up the fabric so it's above the area that is embroidered.

Sounds complicated, but it couldn't be easier. The steps for trapunto are:

• Use a cutaway backing behind the item to be embroidered.

• While framing the item, place batting or other filler type of material between the backing and the material.

• As the design is sewn, the stitching flattens out the batting/filler and causes the material that is not sewn to "poof up."

• When the design is finished, cut away the excess backing and batting (if used).

See, there's nothing to it — trapunto is a neat-looking technique that's very easy to do. The only thing to be aware of is that the design needs to be an enclosed shape around the outside of an area to contain the "poofy" area and capture any filling material that is used.

To make the puffed up area more pronounced, simply use more filler in the middle. Batting makes a great filler because it is easy to work with. You aren't trying to force stuffing under the shirt. You simply place a sheet of batting in between the backing and the material. Batting also trims away easily with the backing.

This process can be combined with an appliqué to produce yet a different effect. On this, just the material in the appliqué would be puffed up. This is a little trickier in that you have to make sure the filler only stays under the appliqué and doesn't stick out past the top stitching.

With all of these variations of embroidery effects, it is possible to make a completely 3-D landscape in embroidery. By combining these different processes, the possibilities are endless.

So whatever you are trying to puff up, be it the threads or the fabric, you can follow these simple guidelines and raise your embroidery to the next level — literally!

Steven Batts, a consultant with 17 years experience in the embroidery industry, owns Righteous Threads, Greensboro, N.C., which offers digitizing, embroidery and machine maintenance services. Steven regularly leads seminars at ISS shows and is an industry speaker and consultant. For more information or to comment on this article, e-mail Steven at rthreads@gmail.com.

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