creeping along…

the right side of the chenille vintage baby blanket

Back in the day when I was a hand weaver, before discovering I could buy fabric already woven, I used to hear stories from brave souls who chose to weave with chenille yarn. The horror stories were how it creeps. Being a non-chenille weaver I never quite understood the creeping properties until this weekend, when I set out to free motion stitch some chenille.

This piece for the collaborative series is partially constructed from a vintage chenille crib blanket. So vintage in fact that it was my own crib blanket.

ridgeback stitching

I spent quite a bit of down-time pondering how to stitch the chenille. I very nearly hand-stitched it. Only last minute while designing the piece did I decide to reverse it so that the rows of sheared cloth would actually be inside next to the batting. I started stitching at the top which gave this really interesting ridgeback effect. Once I hit stride where most of the cut design work was did it get really difficult and began to creep big time.

the reverse side of the vintage chenille baby blanket, clown detail

Interestingly the creep gave it more of a 3-d texture and while it still looks rather ridgeback it also appears stiff as a board. Yet I am so happy, relieved, never need to do that again, over the top, overjoyed to be finished stitching the chenille.

The other portion of this piece is fused images on handwoven wool which might present its own set of challenges but certainly none as difficult as the creep. One hopes anyway…