Silly Chenille

After seeing this technic demomstrated again at the April meeting of a local quilt guild, I decided to play with it at home. 'Faux Chenille' is basically mulitiple layers of fabric that are stacked, then channel-quilted on the diagonal (bias). The layers are then slashed between the rows of stitching, leaving only the bottom layer intack. Because the fabrics are cut on the bias, they will ripple, but usually not ravel too badly. This creates a 'chenille' effect.


For my sample, I chose a dark purple cotton for the bottom layer. I stacked several layers of rayon challis and a layer of what is probably polyester chiffon, followed by a green cotton and finally, a snake-printed polyester organza (or chiffon...I am never sure of these things!). I drew a line to guide my first row of stitching and becan.

Then I slashed between the rows with scissors. Now, there is a really cool tool that makes cutting this a cinch...but I didn't have it. I thought, "This is only a small sample...it will be fine." But boy! did my hand ache after all the cutting!

To make it more interesting, I cut the piece into quarters and rotated them then stitched them back together with a multi-stitch zigzag. Then the whole thing was washed and dried to make it 'bloom'.

Meanwhile, I had begun creating some silly flowers using various interesting fabrics from my stash...a velvet, a lame' (don't know how to get the ' in the right place on my keyboard!) and another scrap from my friend, Etta.

But the flowers were too large...or rather, the background was too small for the flowers!

So I layered up some more fabrics and began stitching again...this time, creating a V shape with my stitching. This way, I could get more interest without having to cut and rotate.

Once the stithcing was completed and this piece was washed and dried to make it 'bloom', I cut it into strips and added them around the outside edges of the first piece.

Then I began to work on the stems and leaves. I cut bias strips from a dark green polished cotton for the stems, and the leaves were cut (free-hand) from a sample swatch of upholstery fabric.

I roughly pinned the pieces in place until I decided what to put where...then I removed the pieces and added the stems, one at a time. The leaves were satin-stitched around the outside edges, as were the flowers.

Then I cut and sewed some black felt around the outside. That is as far as I got...it isn't finished! The felt isn't even cut well...just kinda whacked. But I will finish it eventually...