Category: Crafts

Chenille Jackets

Leave a comment

Today I am teaching a seminar at a store in Onalaska, WI. I was very surprised when I saw two of the employees come in wearing very different, but also very striking chenille jackets! Each of these ladies has had her jacket for a while now, and could not tell me what patterns were used to create the jackets – but I just had to share the pictures with you. They were made with regular fabric that had been chenilled, just as I explained in this post: Make Your Own Chenille, and the Olfa Chenille Cutter was used to make the chenille in each case.

It was exciting to see these great examples of hand-made chenille so soon after posting about this process here on the blog!


This jacket was made using 6 layers of a challis fabric (rayon). Cut through 5 layers.
space

The jacket was finished off with a binding at the edges, just as if you were finishing off a quilt.
space
space
A couple of closeups of the fabric – can’t you just imagine how soft this would be to touch?
space

This beige jacket was made using 2 layers of a green plaid homespun, and 4 layers of osnaburg. The green plaid provides the backing, and the osnaburg is the fabric that was chenilled through.
space

For this jacket, the back was stitched in a V design. This particular design made me think of a suggestion in making chenilled clothing – layer your fabrics on top of each other and when you cut, cut about 1 “ bigger all around because as you sew your channels of stitching your fabrics can shift around a little. After you do the stitching on the bias and cut the channels – then you can cut the piece to the exact pattern piece.
This will make a slightly difficult pattern element such as this back design a lot easier to create.
space

This pattern allows for the lapels of the collar to be turned outward for a different look, or as you can see from the other pictures the jacket looks great with the lapels of the collar turned in – whichever look you choose for the day.
space
space
These closeups show a bit more of the detail of the chenilleing process, can you see the green plaid peeking through the chenille rows? Adds an extra bit of depth to the look of this lovely jacket.

space
The woman in the beige jacket was my ‘Vanna’ for the afternoon (holding up quilts as I talked about them to the audience). She was kind enough to volunteer to wear her jacket throughout the program today, just so that people could see the chenille look as I was talking about it! Now, I have to tell you, it may not be exactly warm in Wisconsin right now, but it’s not cold enough to be wearing a thick jacket like this indoors for two hours! Clapping 2 What a Trooper!

Many thanks to both of these ladies for their willingness to share these lovely creations.

Love the feel of chenille? Be sure to check out these other posts about making and sewing with your own chenille fabric:

Sheila Reinke, Heart of Sewing
Sheila

FREE Pattern – Chenille Placemats

2 Comments

For today’s chenille project, I used osnaburg.

What is osnaburg? Well, dictionaries define it as “a type of coarse, heavy cloth, originally of linen and now of cotton; used in making sacks, work clothes, etc.”
It can be found in the muslins of your local fabric store, it is a loosely woven cloth that works very nicely for making chenille. Many sewers consider it an inexpensive alternative to linen in home décor projects.

    1. I began with 6 layers of osnaburg, 45” x 28”, layered on top of one another.

 


Picture of osnaburg, after channels have been stitched.
    1. Next, I cut 8 blue stars and 8 red stars (there will be four stars on each placemat) out of a solid cotton fabric.
      • Note: Make sure to cut the stars from your fabric so that when you lay out your placemat the channels will run along the bias of the star pattern. If your channels don’t run along the bias of the appliqué – it will fall apart in the wash.
    2. I kept my fabric in one large piece (all four placemats will be made from this one piece), so before placing the stars I wanted to determine the size of the placemats. My small Olfa rotary cutter mat is 12” x 18”, with a ½” edge around the mat. I decided this 13” x 19” size would be perfect, so using a washable fabric pencil, I marked out my placemats with the mat as a template. (The lines do appear in this picture, but may be difficult to make out.)
    3. Determine the layout for your stars, and place them onto each of the placemats – don’t forget that the channels need to run on the bias of the stars as well as the osnaburg fabric.
    4. Pin your stars down onto the layers of osnaburg, do not use any type of wonder-under or quilt basting spray to hold the stars in place, that will only cause you to gum up your chenille cutter when cutting the channels.

The picture above shows the layout of the stars, please note that in this picture I have already stitched the channels and begun cutting them.

    1. You are now dealing with 7 layers of fabric, which can be a bit difficult for many machines.
      • To keep the fabric from shifting too much as you work, I suggest using a walking foot. The walking foot has a set of feed dogs just like you have on your sewing machine. This enables you to have a set of feed dogs under the fabric and a set over the fabric helping to feed the fabric more even. Hancock Fabrics carries these both a low shank and a high shank option.

walking foot
  1. Now that you have the walking foot on your machine (hopefully!), you can begin the channel stitching. As with all my other projects, I began by drawing one line that ran through the center of the fabric along the bias. I stitched along that line, and then used the edge of my walking foot to follow the line of that stitch and when placing the next line. This made my channels approximately ½” apart.
    • After all the channels are stitched, use your Olfa Chenille Cutter to cut through four layers of the osnaburg and the star appliqués.
    • Now it is time to cut your placemats apart and bind them.
space
    • Wash – Dry – Enjoy!


Once again, a picture really doesn’t show how very soft this finished piece is

Note: if you want a more ‘full’ look for your appliqués, you will need to put three layers of the appliqué fabric down on top of the osnaburg (and yes, you would still use 6 layers of osnaburg – so you would be channel stitching through 9 total layers of fabric in places where your appliqué appeared).

What are some other ideas for this type of chenille? I’ve seen a beautiful jacket made from chenilled osnaburg, and just think of the look of a chenille quilt square in a quilt made with fabrics of different textures, and of course you could do all sorts of different appliqués and get a great look. Just imagine, chenille trees on placemats, chenille birthday presents on placemats, chenille flowers on placemats…
Sheila Reinke, Heart of Sewing
Sheila

FREE Pattern – Chenille Rug

4 Comments

Today, I will still be talking about making chenille but now we are using homespun fabric.

Homespun is a great fabric to work with because it “blooms” so well.
What is homespun fabric? – I’m glad you asked! (Well, I’m sure that at least some of you asked) Winking 2

When homespun fabric is made they dye the thread and then weave the fabric. It also tends to be a little looser weave than a printed calico would be. Because it is a product that is woven after the thread has been dyed (instead of having the pattern printed on the top of the fabric), it will have a pattern that is easy to weave, such as strip, plaid, and occasionally hearts or stars will be in the pattern. Of course, it also comes in solids. Homespun fabric is 100% cotton.

The fact that the fabric is woven instead of printed means that you will be able to see the pattern on both the front and back sides of the fabric. But one side will always clearly be the front – so make sure you pay attention as you are laying out your fabrics!

Today I am going to share with you a rug that I made out of homespun fabrics.
If you have not already seen my post on how to make your own chenille, here is the link. It should help to clarify some items that are not fully explained in this post.

    1. You will need 6 layers of homespun fabric 45” X 25”.
    2. Lay the first layer facing down and 5 layers facing up. I wanted the plaid on the homespun fabric to still appear after I chenilled the rug, so I made sure that the plaid lines were stacked directly on top of each other before I started to sew.
    3. Using a washable fabric marker or pencil, draw a line diagonally from one corner of the fabric to the opposite corner.
    4. Stitch along the line you just drew.
    5. Continue to stitch approx ½” channels all across your project, using the first line you stitched as a guide.
    1. Next cut through the top 4 layers of homespun with the Olfa Chenille Cutter.
    1. Once you have the cut all of your channels, trim your project to the desired shape. In this case I wanted an oval rug. You can either make a pattern from an existing rug you have in your home or in my case I used newspaper and cut until I found the shape I wanted for the oval.
    2. After you cut to shape add a binding. In this case, since my rug was an oval I made my binding on the bias.
space
    1. Wash and dry. Doesn’t this fabric just ‘bloom’ beautifully? And a picture really can’t show you how soft it is!
    1. Enjoy! This makes a great gift for yourself – or for a friend!

Love the feel of chenille? Be sure to check out these links for more ideas on making and sewing with your own custom chenille fabric:

Sheila Reinke, Heart of Sewing
Sheila