One of the Handi Quilter educators, Harriet Carpanini, was here for our 36th Anniversary Party. She showed us a panel she had “chenilled” and suggested we do the Billy Bear panel (988804) she saw in the shop. I thought that was a great idea and I did it! I did it on my Handi Quilter and will have a special class for my HQ owners, but I wrote up instructions for doing it on a regular sewing machine, and shared that with my Creative Sewing Club members this week.

We’re giving the instructions away with purchase of the 4 panels you need to make it. You also need a backing. You’ll sew the ½” diagonal channels and cut them open with the wonderful Chenille Cutter. (18594) I’ve done lots of chenille over the years and tried all the tools, and nothing compares to this one!

I’m almost finished with another panel, Le Spring Bouquet, purple of course! (983306) I’ll show it to you later. I left some channels uncut so I could demonstrate how easy it is at our Shop Hop this weekend. One of my Sewing Club members, Maggie Sweeney, plans to do one with a nautical theme (989281). That’ll be really cute, too! Although we haven’t written instructions for these panels, we can send you the Billy Bear Chenille instructions with your order of any four identical panels, and it’ll be applicable to those also. You should choose panels like the ones here, fairly large, and with not too much really small detail, for best results. Be sure to ask for your instructions with the purchase of the four panels.

It’s a fun technique and the results are really striking. “Everything old is new again!”

(To find the item on our web page after clicking on the link, hold down the “Ctrl” key and touch F. Enter the 5 digit number in the box, and you’ll be taken to that item!)