Vani's Chenille QAL - Part 4 (Applique)

QAL – (Faux) Chenille - Applique.

Week 3This is yet another application for Chenille –it makes a lovely outline for your appliqué. This is great for baby quilts as it creates a really tactile quilt which babies love to play on.

What you need to start:

Fabric scraps to for your appliqué shapes Larger fabric squares for your chenille strips (contrasting fabrics work best) Vliesoflix or double sided fusible webbing Thread (neutral or strong contrast to top fabric) Scissors Temp. Marking pens/pencils Ruler

Vanita Roychoudhry for www.vaniquilt.com

Cut out your appliqué shapes and fuse onto your block using the fusible webbing (or use any other method to attach your appliqué shapes to your block). I have gone for simple shapes here for this cot quilt.

Outline your applique shapes with a line of stitching close to the edge (raw edge applique). This holds the fabric in place. You don’t have to be overly accurate.


Take your chenille fabric and fold it diagonally and then give it a light press.

These are the ones I’ve chosen for my outlines.


As before, mark out your lines ½” from the folded edge of the fabric. Do this for all the chenille fabric squares. You don’t need to mark out the whole width of the fabric, just a few rows to give you enough chenille strips. Sew these lines as with the previous Chenille QALs.

Now you will need to cut out your chenille strips. I use the sewn line as my mark to make sure that I cut 1/4” from the edge of the sewn line. (You will be slicing off the folded edge).


Cut a few strips from each fabric.

Now sew these strips onto the edge of your appliquéd shapes. NOTE: I did all my embroidery for the antennae and the ‘spots’ on the shapes before I did this step, so that all the edges were under the chenille strip. You don’t have to, it doesn’t really make too much difference. Make sure that you have sufficient overlap on the start and end of the strip. This also applies if you are using up smaller bits of chenille strips. Ensure that you lock your stitching both at the start and at the end of the seam. This is really important because you will really be rubbing these strips to ‘fluff’ them up and you want your strip to stay put!


Pay attention to the strips that are going to be over or under and sew the ‘under’ ones first.

Make sure that there is sufficient overlap so that no gaps appear in your ‘fluffed’ chenille.


You can use the chenille strips to create a spiral like I have for the snail’s shell below

And this is what it looks like with all the blocks sewn together.


Now you are ready to apply some elbow grease and rub the chenille strips with a really stiff brush. This takes some effort, but you end up with lovely, soft, fluffy edges. What kid wouldn’t like to play with the soft chenille edges.

That’s it. I’ll post pictures of the completed cot quilt later. I do hope you’ve enjoyed the Faux Chenille QAL – I’ve certainly enjoyed sharing it with you. Don’t forget to post up your pictures to the QAL album.


Vani's Chenille QAL - Part 4 (Applique)

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Transcript of Vani's Chenille QAL - Part 4 (Applique)