I discovered Faux Chenille Quilts one day down the Pinterest rabbit hole - you know, that rabbit hole you get sucked into when you open up Pinterest to look up something you've saved. Next thing you know you're inundated with shiny things on the opening page so you click on "just one" link, then hours later you can't remember why you opened up your Pinterest page in the first place!
I saw this post (linked HERE) "Sewing:Heirloom Cut Chenille Baby Blanket" from the Aesthetic Nest, and I had the sudden urge to make something I'd never even heard of before. Several things contributed to the urge. First, one of my co-workers had just had a baby. I will usually gift a crocheted baby blanket when one of my friends has their first child. I hadn't been crocheting lately though so I didn't have a blanket... but this looked perfect! Then, I found that flannel was on sale at my local fabric store. That sealed it. I was going to make a cut chenille blanket.
I love making baby blankets. My baby blankets tend to be sturdy weighty things. Light lacy blankets are beautiful to look at but fingers and toes tend to stick out through the holes and, well, they just don't seem practical. My signature blankets are stroller blankets. Good size blankets with some weight to snuggle your baby in when you go out in the autumn air. Or, in summer, something that you can unfurl on the ground. These blankets seemed right up my alley. They could be used as play mats. Babies like the textured feel of the chenille. Apparently autistic kids like them too and they are sold as "sensory blankets." I had to make one.
The instructions were simple enough. What took time was quilting all the layers together. I think the most difficult decision I had to make was what fabric pattern to buy. So many choices and color combinations!
Materials Needed
1.25 yards cotton print fabric
(4) 1.25 yard lengths of coordinating flannel fabric
matching thread
5+ yards of matching bias
I came up with 1.25 yards because my material was 44 inches wide and I wanted make the biggest possible square with my fabric. My blanket was for a little boy so I settled on a colorful dinosaur print fabric, then got flannel in yellow, orange, and blue to match the print fabric.
There will be one layer of flannel right next to the print fabric that acts as a backing and doesn't get cut. The other flannel layers get cut. I decided to use the same color flannel for the backing layer as well as the first layer but that is personal preference. You can also use more or less layers depending on how full you want your final product. I saw several blankets with just 3 layers - one backing layer and two cut layers - but I wanted mine fuller and went with four.
Make a fabric sandwich by first placing your print fabric wrong side up on your table, then layer your flannel fabric on top. Pin all of it together when your done. Flip it over and you should now be looking at the right side of the print fabric.
Now is the time consuming part...
Mark a 45 degree diagonal line from corner to corner (or close) on the right side of the fabric. I folded a newspaper to get a 45 degree angle then put one of the straight edges along one of the blanket edges then ran a piece of painter's tape for my line. You can also mark it with a fabric pencil. I used tape because my fabric was dark and I wanted something really easy to follow.
Now sew down your line.
I HIGHLY recommend using a walking foot on your sewing machine to do this. A walking foot grabs your fabric from both the top and the bottom so it feeds evenly through the machine. I had never used a walking foot before. It changed my life!!!
Seriously. Years and years ago I wanted to make quilts. I'd pierce the tops but then all the material would bunch and pucker when I tried to quilt together the top with the batting and the backing. No one told me I needed a walking foot. I got so frustrated I never finished those quilts. I still have them in storage crates though... so that may be another story!
Back to our blanket. So sew down your line. Now proceed to sew more parallel lines a half-inch apart until the whole blanket is quilted.
sewing, sewing, sewing...
I found that there is some shift in the layers as you sew so once you get the whole blanket quilted go ahead and trim your edges so everything is nice and straight and square.
Trimmed to a nice square
All quilted!
Now flip the blanket over to the flannel side and cut through the top 3 layers of flannel. You are cutting a slit in the flannel between the sewn lines. Do not cut the flannel that is right next to the printed fabric.
cutting, cutting, cutting
All cut!
After all the flannel is cut, bind the blanket with bias tape so you are sewing down the cut edges all around the blanket.
All done sewing!
Now for the fun part. It's a hold-your-breath moment the first time you do it.
Throw your blanket in the washing machine with a bit of detergent and wash it... and dry it... and wash it... and dry it. It's suppose to get fluffier the more you wash and dry it. Definitely wash and dry the blanket by itself unless you want lint on everything else.
Ta Dah!!
Faux Chenille. SO fluffy!
Before washing
After washing
Folded and ready to gift
Sturdy enough to cradle a newborn
… and worked well as a play mat too!
Well... after that I was dying to make more!
Dreams of making them for my Etsy store filled my head. Then, one of my friends placed a custom order for an adult size blanket. Adult size as in big enough to cover a queen size bed. Not one to back down from a challenge, I jumped at the opportunity.
I love to do custom orders. What more could a crafter want?! With custom orders I will quote the actual material cost then charge something for my time to put it all together. The person placing the order gets exactly what they want and I get to do something I love with someone else paying for the materials I get to play with. Any "profit" I make I use to buy more craft materials for myself . My end goal would be to have a self-sustaining hobby. I'm certainly not charging enough to make a living but I'm doing what I love.
First I perused the fabric store and sent her photos of a couple of fabric choices that suited her color and pattern preferences. This is what we settled on...
Pictured here is 5 yards of print fabric and 20 yards of flannel.
Luckily the flannel was still on sale!
One of the challenges to making a larger blanket was stuffing all that material through the throat of the sewing machine (the space on the right side). I found this post (linked HERE) "Queen Sized Faux Chenille Quilt - Tutorial" from Making Things Is Awesome that showed a queen size quilt made with a regular sewing machine so I knew it was possible. Rolling the material helped but it was 5 layers of fabric and rather heavy. I then spent SEVERAL days stuffing all that material through my sewing machine to get it all quilted. My arms got quite the workout.
Sewing...
Sewing...
Sewing...
Somehow there was something addicting about quilting row after row of lines. I just couldn't stop!
Done!
Quite honestly, I'm in LOVE with this fabric
Once it was all quilted I put it on a queen size bed to check the sizing.
Another challenge to making a larger faux chenille blanket was that it required more than one width of material. Since all of my material was 44 inches wide I put two 2.5 yard sections of material side by side and sewed it together. The actual quilt is shorter than 90 inches because I had to shift the two sections up and down a bit so the pattern matched up perfectly.
Next came the cutting. I decided to try using a chenille cutter as my hands started aching and cramping when I used my scissors for long periods of time. The chenille cutter is a tool that is suppose to rip through the fabric with the greatest of ease and reduce your cutting time significantly. I bought a Fiskers brand chenille cutter and tried it out. It wouldn't even may a DENT in the three layers of flannel I was trying to cut. I had to return it. I ended up buying some spring loaded scissors that I saw one of the women at the fabric store use at the cutting counter. They worked wonderfully and didn't hurt my hands.
I purchased another half yard of the print material to make my own binding. This was born out of necessity as I actually tried to buy matching bias tape but I needed 10 packages and 1) none of the stores stocked 10 packages, and 2) if I special ordered them from the store I'd have to pay full rip retail which amounted to $30! The half yard of material cost me $2.50. I loved how the binding turned out and will be making my own binding from now on.
Next it was wash, dry, and hold your breath time!
Voila!
I LOVE these colors!
I also loved the heft of this blanket. It ended up weighing 8.5 lbs! Looks like I need to make one for myself once my arms recover.
My finished product.
A little sad to see it go!
I really liked how the homemade binding turned out
But wait!
Looky what I found!
This photo doesn't so the fabric justice. The depth of that red is incredible!
This beautiful fabric caught my eye. It was on the clearance rack. I had visions of making my own king size faux chenille quilt out of it. But alas, there wasn't enough material left on the bolt. Sigh. The material was so pretty though I had to buy some of it. I bought enough to make another baby blanket.
This will go in my Etsy store when I'm done and hopefully someone will be just as thrilled as I am to find it!
