Blue Butterfly Chenille Blanket

I just finished sewing my first chenille blanket and I'm just thrilled with how it turned out.  My brother and his wife are expecting a baby girl next month and I wanted to make something in time for the baby shower coming up shortly.  

At one point I considered attempting a quilt which I've never tried before but then I found a blog about the faux chenille blanket and I was hooked.  Here is the beautiful blanket from Anneliese's blog "Aesthetic Nest" that inspired me to make one for my sister-in-law.

At Fabricland I had a hard time choosing between two beautiful patterns for the top layer. One was similar to the blog, peachy-pink in colour and quite girly which is perfect since my brother is expecting a girl.  But then I also found a vibrant blue fabric along with the matching cotton flannels.  In the end I chose to go with blue since it was very pretty but not overwhelmingly feminine.  I expect there may already be too much pink coming their way at the baby shower.  Altogether there are three layers of flannels - blue, white, and greenish-yellow.

I began the project with sufficient warning from the blog that sewing lines for hours would be a tedious task but I was prepared to go for it.  Here I am still fresh after sewing only 3 measly lines through the blanket.

I basically followed the instructions laid out in the blog so I don't need to repeat any steps here. I must be a much slower sewer than Anneliese because the process of sewing straight lines took me closer to 7 hours than 4-5.  I guess I was just being overly cautious in the beginning and really took my time. Eventually I got better (or less patient) so the sewing ramped up over time.  I can't say the lines are all that even or parallel but if you look at the blanket as a whole, it's not obvious.

Lines complete after 7 hours

Back side of blanket

At the very least there was almost no cutting during the prep stage and that had its benefits over a quilt.   I probably wouldn't mind fabric cutting as much if I had a proper rotary cutter and mat but so far I've been getting by pretty decently with just a handy pair of scissors.  For this project though I decided to expand my tool set and ordered the Olfa chenille cutter that Anneliese mentions in her blog.  It definitely saved me time and effort!

Chenille cutter with 4 settings

I was a little nervous throwing the whole blanket into the wash after completing my hours of sewing since I had not pre-washed any of the fabrics.  I chose a gentle cycle with cold water and then tossed it in the dryer on the low heat setting.  When the dryer buzzer rang out I was delighted to see how nicely the whole thing had fluffed up!  You should have seen how much fuzz was in the fuzz catcher!

I definitely plan on making another chenille blanket for our own little one, possibly over Christmas time.  It's a simple enough project as long as you have the patience, and it produces fantastic results!  I ended up using two full spools of golden thread...400m of thread total! Now that's allota lines!