Chenille Quilting

 More quilting has been going on, the machines are piling up, and we are heading into a warm season. You know what that means: everyone is outdoors and not thinking about sewing. I guess I need to find a way to store these beauties until 1. it gets hot enough to drive us indoors to an air conditioned room or 2. it turns cold, as in winter. Since I finished the big project of my sister Sue's quilt, I looked over my projects-in-waiting and saw the laundry basket full of flannel. Last Christmas I knit each grandchild a pair of slippers and put them in a bag with their name. That was a pretty big hit so this year I'm going to take on making each one a pair of pajama pants. My quilting sister, Jane, did this last year for her family so I'm going to try that out this year especially since I have so much time if I start now. Since they are growing kids I better not actually sew them up now but I am looking through my patterns and matching up flannel with the kids in question. Even after finding eleven different pieces, all big enough for pj pants, I still have a very large amount of flannel left. What uses up a ton of flannel (that doesn't even have to match) in one or two quilts? Making a chenille quilt.

You can make your own "chenille" by stacking fabrics, stitching channels on the bias, cutting open the top pieces of fabric, then washing and drying to create the fluffy ridges like the old chenille bedspreads. After Googling for ideas on how to assemble these blocks into a quilt, I found an idea of using printed fabric panels to make the chenille. It dawned on me that I did have panels to use up so I dug out a Christmas set and a wolf set and got started on the wolves.

Wolf block, stacked with channels stitched

I conveniently had twelve panels, six of each pose, so I could make a quilt of four blocks. each block consisted of three panels carefully stacked to match, with a bottom fabric that would face the opposite way and would be the back of the quilt. There was a large piece of tan printed flannel I could use so I stacked, sewed in channels about a half inch apart, then cut the top two open with a chenille cutter. The bottom two layers are not cut since they are foundation pieces of the quilt. I did have a chenille cutter that I wrote about in Chenille Maker but over time and a bit of frustration I found a sharp pair of scissors worked better for me. I also found it was better to sew each line of stitches as a single row, not turning the piece around and heading in the opposite direction (as shown in the photo above) since you would have to cut through those turning stitches at the end. The perfect machine for this project was the Elna Pro Quilter 7300, a new purchase I have not regretted. It has the built-in walking foot to keep all of those layers from moving and the thread cutting feature was perfect.

Elna Pro Quilting Queen 7300

After making the four 15" blocks I could see this wasn't going to add up to much for size but what to use for sashing to expand and connect the blocks was a big question. The blocks were already four layers of fabric thick with the backing fabric on them so I needed to create more of the same for the strips between the quilt blocks. I found fabric that coordinated well, meant for another project but not used, layering top print, two solid color layers under it with flannel on the bottom with the right side facing out. Since I ran out of the printed flannel used on the wolf blocks I had to find something that would coordinate: black flannel to the rescue!  I made up 8" wide strips in the right lengths, sewing the channels, cutting open, washing and drying, trimming to 7" wide strips and sewing onto the wolf blocks

Sewing the chenille sections together

This could be really messy as I barely had enough of the finished section to sew together without cutting everything down again. Then I found out on the last pieces I put through the wash and dry routine had sections I forgot to cut!

The before and after of the chenille process

When it was all assembled, black flannel binding added, I had to put it through the wash again and this time it all came back fluffed out:

Quilt front, above, back below

After each washing I needed to cut off extra threads but this final washing was really final with most of it already trimmed and ready to go. It feels somewhat heavy and might make a nice lap quilt but since it's 50" square it's not tiny either. I had a great time making this quilt and have another one with the Christmas fabric in the planning stages. Remember how this started out as a flannel project? I only used  flannel on the back so I still have that basket full. I did cut out 8" squares and have them sorted into potential quilts and that can be half the battle. Now I've had enough of quilts and I'm working on sewing up some clothing for the summer weather that is coming soon, we hope. Minnesota, my adopted state, has stunning summers but she does make you beg for them!