Thursday, March 1, 2012

Lili's flowers finalized

Today I finally had the opportunity to brush out the chenille strips on the baby quilt I finished on Monday.  The flowers came out super pretty! Here are the close-up shots I took:
On this shot you can see how nicely the quilt puckered up after washing




As I was working I was listening to Sandi's podcast Quilt Cabana Corner (see side bar for link). I am catching up with her since I just started to listen to her yesterday. I was at an episode where She was reviewing the McCall's Quick Quilts June/July 2011 issue. On page 40 there's a quilt called Leahbelle's Garden which is exactly the quilt that inspired me to make this one. On top of everything Sandi was the one who designed it. Isn't it interesting? Life has it's own twists :) Just thought I'd share this.
I never thought it will take me several hours to brush out and fluff up these flowers. It came to me why so I'll share the reasons below. This was my first project using chenille strips. Even though I knew the method by seeing it on TV and watching it over and over again, there were some things that I never realized until now.
In case you never worked with chenille before here are some tips I've learned along the way:
  1. When you make your chenille strips use plain fabric. I used a white printed fabric which had little cars printed all over and when I  tried to brush the petal edges I noticed that the prints did not want to fray as easily as the plain fabric.
  2. When  you cut out the squares for the strips,  iron a same size of freezer paper on one of the squares and draw the diagonal lines on the paper instead of the fabric. Stitch over the lines and remover the freezer paper before cutting the strips apart.
  3. When doing the quilting make sure you move the strips away from the darning foot so you don't stitch over the fabric strips.
  4. Be prepared to have lots of  lint while brushing. I actually kept cleaning the brush very frequently and put the lint in a plastic container to keep them from blowing all over the place. In this thought it's good to do this part of the job before cleaning the house. I had  thread pieces in my hair and my clothing, not to mention the dining room and all the floors in the house .
  5. Calculate on a longer time period to do the brushing part. Don't underestimate the process as I did. It took me close to 4  hours to get the few flowers done.


Hope these tips will be helpful for you and will make your job easier. Besides all of these things I'm really happy with the result how it came out. I totally like the chenille texture.

Finally, here are the pictures of the quilt front and back:

I pieced the back from the leftover fabrics 



25 comments:

  1. Very pretty. Never have seen anything like it.

    Donna
    don_mae2@yahoo.com

    ReplyDelete
  2. I LOVE IT!!! It is SO wonderful! I LOVE pink and feel like I am all alone in the world some times ;D FANTASTIC!!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh, don't worry if I could I would only use pink in my quilts! :) LOVE pink!

      Delete
  3. Very beautiful. I want to trace my finger over those flower petals! I love chenille and amazed that you made your own.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I love the chenille too now that I made it :) It's not hard at all... learned my lessons :)

      Delete
  4. I LOVE this quilt, with all that texture. WHat a fun thing for a baby to be able to touch and feel. And it is lovely, too.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Oh, just love the texture and color of this quilt!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I really like this! Do you have a link for instructions for this technique? I have seen a teddy bear from flannel at a LQS. But I didn't have anyone to make it for and wouldn't buy the pattern. Flowers, I could do for LOTS of people.

    Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Mary,
      As a matter of fact I don't have any links. I looked on youtube and only found chenille fabric making, but not strips. I'll try to put a tutorial together if you want to check back in a few days. It's really not that hard to make! Thanks for commenting!

      Delete
  7. I saw chenille in a baby quilt one time and loved it. This is wonderful and you did a lovely job. I have lots of vintage chenille but am always afraid to cut it up.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You should try it, it's fun! Not mentioning the result :)

      Delete
  8. Gorgeous beyond words my friend!!! Love that chenille going on!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Oh, I love those chenille flowers! What a wonderful idea!! Whoop whoop!!

    ReplyDelete
  10. Very pretty and so unique! I've never seen one like it! Thanks for the tips, too:)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're very welcome, and thank YOU for the nice comment! :)

      Delete
  11. love the chenille on this quilt. I haven't seen that before. nice job.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Wow I didn't know you could do this! :) Beautiful!!! xox

    ReplyDelete
  13. beautiful!! what a sweet, sweet little quilt. love the chenille part, too. need to try that sometime. thanks for sharing and have a great day

    ReplyDelete

I am truly glad you visited, and a special thanks to You for taking your time to leave a comment! It always makes me smile when people write to me. Thanks, from the bottom of my heart! :)