make your own chenille

Why exactly? Because you can, of course.

I was intrigued by a tutorial by Anneliese at Aesthetic Nest. It looked so cool to turn flannel into something so different and dimensional. Lots of steps but nothing too complicated. Would it turn out like hers?

Well I'm here to tell you that it did! Soft and raggedy, multicolored 3-D chenille! But I am also here to tell you that it was a ridiculous amount of work for a 40X40 baby blanket. And expensive, to boot. Three yards of flannel and another yard of quilting cotton.

Then there was the quilting. That is a lot of diagonal lines, people. And each and every one has to be cut, but regular sewing scissors do not fit down that skinny channel. Enter the less-sharp scissors from my knitting bag, requiring each channel to be cut TWICE. That's right, twice. 

This one is a baby blanket for some graduate school friends expecting their first. I wish I had used a more monochromatic group of flannels. I hadn't really anticipated how they would look cut and frayed. But I think it turned out looking cute and lively. And I couldn't have realized how fun the blanket would feel when it was done--not just the nubby-ness of the the chenille, but the combination of the weight of the heavier strips of flannel and all that quilting to the quilting cotton gave it kind of a wiggly, rubbery feeling--very hard to explain but Frances knew what I was talking about right away.

She immediately wanted one for herself--but all that work was for a baby size! A lap size?! No way! So I decided to make her a pillow--the perfect little showcase for that fluffy chenille goodness.