Faux chenille Jacket

Has anyone made the Faux Chenille Jacket w/ 6 layers of challis? Do you have any tips?

Use a walking foot with a quilting bar attachment. That way you can mark the first line and then the bar will ride in the stitching channel of previous row. Any other way is impossible to keep the layers from creeping, as far as I know. You can find a generic walking foot at Nancy's Notions and most mail order catalogs.

Jean, I made the jacket and I pinned the material at about 2 inch intervals. I did not baste around the jacket. That is your problem. My sister made this jacket with great success. She said the trick was to use her walking foot. She did not mark anything but the center line. She put on the walking foot that has a guide bar (she sews on a Bernina 1090 and uses a Bernina walking foot) and sewed down the center. From there she used the guide bar to sew a 5/8" seam. She sewed from the center down one side of the fabric, then turned the fabric around and sew the other side, all with the walking foot. Her jacket looks beautiful.

As a hint from her, she wishes she had made it with at least 3/4" - 7/8" seams. The narrower the spacing is, the harder it is to get your scissors in between the stitched lines.

I assume you are making this out of rayon. Did you prewash it and dry it? You can also make this out of cotton or a cotton/poly blend. Any fabric that will fray at the edges will look great when finished.

If all else fails, there is a wonderful basting spray that does wash out. I don't remember the name of it right now but you can find it in your quilt shop if they haven't sold out. It works well but gets your hand sticky too. Try the walking foot first - you can always use it for other things.

One of the gals in my ASG chapter made the fauz chenille vest. First she said she got samples to see what colors would look good together and did several squares for future reference. She said she was amazed at the colors that actually looked good together when stitched and washed. Color you would never put together in a skirt and blouse. The main thing she emphasized was sewing the lines first and serging around the perimeter before cutting inbetween the lines. Then she said that she threw the fabric in the wash for about a week whenever she did the laundry before she cut out the pattern pieces. Her vest was so gorgeous that someone offered her $200.00 for it. Of course she wouldn't take it. She went to a convention in IL and brought back instructions for a faux chenille pillow that we put in our newsletter. This gal usually only does strip quilting but the chenille caught her eye because of the beauty of the (home-made) fabric. I can't wait to try the pillow as a first project.

Reporting back to all who helped about 3 weeks ago w/ my jacket. This is what worked for me. Several applications of heavy spray starch and ironing it dry, made the fabric easier to mark w/ a chalk wheel. Mark a little, sew a little. I found it easier to cut the top layers w/ my Fiskars spring-loaded scissors. Because their tip is blunt, it was fairly easy to miss the bottom layer. I tried the olfa strips, but it didn't work as well for me. Maybe because I was working on black, so it was hard to see the lines on the ruler. After I finished all the cutting, I serged around all the edges. Then threw them in the washer & dryer, 3 or 4 times. I love it!! It was worth all the work! Plan to put the jacket together this weekend. Even went to CW & bought the vest pattern, too. Denise, the patterns are McCalls # 8528 & # 8866. Not a quicky project, for sure, but well worth the effort. One of my non-sewing friends saw the pieces on my table this week and just loved it- said it looked so elegant. ----- Jean