CHENILLE COVERS HER DESIGNS Antique spreads intrigue creative Christina Lynn Whited 09/16/01 By AL WARR The Express-Times "I designed my first hat when I was 12 years old," said Christina Lynn Whited. "And that led me to all of this." As she sat on the full-sized bed, Whited waved her arm over a chenille bedspread stacked high with stuffed pillows and stuffed animals, baby squeakers and rattles, all soft sculptures in gentle colors she had crafted. Racks of clothing made from chenille stretched off across the room, baskets of more pillows crowded the floor, and neatly folded chenille bedspreads were stacked to the ceiling in cupboards around the walls. Chenille is an American invention. Making things out of antique chenille fabrics is one of Whited’s pursuits. Everyone has seen chenille bedspreads - probably on a grandmother’s bed. Small tufts of threads stand above the surface, fashioned into designs that swirl and repeat, forming raised patterns that jump off the surface at you, sometimes in color, sometimes white on white. That hat Whited designed when she was not yet a teen-ager led her to the New York Fashion Institute of Technology. Hats have always fascinated her and she still has a collection dating from those college days. "Chenille came later," she said. "When I finished up at FIT, I started a wholesale millinery business. The thing that spurred me on at the time was the cycle of market shortages that occurs in various materials -like the velours." She always designed and produced all sorts of unique creations. One of the most popular was a baseball cap she fashioned out of seven different fabrics - one for each panel - using drapery materials from the 1940s. Chenille became her passion when she left New York City and settled in High Bridge. One of her young sons came up with the name CoCo:Chenille. It stuck and has become a name to be reckoned with nationally. Whited’s mission - and business - is to salvage a dying industry. She searches out sources of the older chenille bedspreads made 50 to 75 years ago. Then she recycles them through her creative designs into delightful and useful products for people to wear and use to decorate their homes. No piece of chenille is ever wasted here. "The older chenille bedspreads have the character of the hands that made them," she explained. "Modern chenille is a computerized, machine-made product untouched by human hands. Today, chenille is manufactured entirely on machines in continuous, 120-inch wide runs and all the patterning is done on needle beds driven by computers." Most of the current chenille is produced in Asia. Chenille has enjoyed a widespread resurgence in the decorating industry. Displays of brand-new bedspreads - fresh off the boat from China - are on prominent display in big department stores. "New chenille doesn’t have the character of the chenille made in northern Georgia where it was first produced," she said. A young woman named Catherine Evans created the first chenille in Dalton, Ga., in 1895. She was 15 years old. Evans figured out ways to make the chenille quickly, and although it was done by hand, an industry was born. Whited is writing a book on the history of chenille. It’s another one of her projects she expects to complete - as time allows. "Chenille work is anonymous," she said. "Women were doing chenille by hand up until the Great Depression. Only during the 1930s did it become mechanized." The designs produced on those bedspreads our grandmothers prized depended on the machines and the factory limitations. There is only one factory left in this country - in Chattanooga, Tenn. All the chenille factories have closed in Dalton, she said. Whited keeps her museum collection of chenille in separate quarters from the chenille offered for sale in the store. The museum collection serves as the basis for her book. She also purchased one of the chenille machines from a mill that was closing. Gigi Schweikert of High Bridge says she’s a big fan of CoCo:Chenille. "Christina’s a single working mom in business and a wonderful role model," Schweikert said. "Everywhere I go, people see the things my three kids are wearing from CoCo:Chenille and they ask me, ‘Where on earth do you get these wonderful clothes?’" Schweikert’s husband, Al, serves as mayor of High Bridge. He buys their children hooded shirts from Whited’s store. CoCo:Chenille has received a king-size amount of national publicity over the years. Bedroom & Bath, a Better Homes & Gardens publication, featured the store on the cover of their Winter 1998 issue. Country Living magazine has carried Whited’s designs and creations many times, starting with the December 1996 issue. Two years ago, the New York Times ran a half page feature on CoCo:Chenille. In November, two of the company’s chenille pillows will be part of the newspaper’s November "Gift Guide." The store has its own Web site at cocochenille.com and Whited publishes a newsletter. Anyone who goes to the Web site and requests the newsletter gets a discount when ordering. Whited is a prolific designer. Her store brims with a wide range of items all crafted from recycled chenille. There are crib sets, crib bumpers and patchwork crib throws. Rattles and squeakers for babies were inspired by three women from Easton visiting the store. One of the women picked up a stuffed chenille toy and tried squeezing it and shaking it to see if it made a noise. Whited immediately saw the need to stuff some sound into the soft toy, and the new line of products was born. Scottie dogs and ginger bears made from chenille are popular sellers. Stuffed chickens, ponies, fish and rabbits also populate the store’s menagerie. "The fish spawned a whole series," she laughed. "There are beach balls, sailboats and lobsters." One was "swimming" across the bed beside her. "Big shirts are popular," she said. "They make a wonderful cover-up for women. And we just made a black chenille sheath for a lady going to an evening wedding." Tank dresses and jackets hang on racks, waiting to be donned in the private dressing room. Whited has designed bathrobes and shower curtains made out of chenille, tablecloths and lamp shades, tote bags and whimsical pillows, coverlets and valances. Prices for small items start around $15 and the more spectacular productions can range into the hundreds of dollars. And, of course, the store offers bedspreads for sale. Antique chenille in perfect condition can be costly - especially in unusual colors and designs. But antique chenille can be less expensive than some of today’s bedspreads and modern coverlets. "My parents encouraged us kids to do whatever we could think up," Whited said. "My father gave me the capacity to dream." She grew up in upstate New York with a sister and two brothers. "My grandmother wove rugs. We were a hands-on family." Now, Whited has her hands full. Besides running CoCo:Chenille, she also owns the commercial laundry a few doors away. "I’ve put it up for sale," she said. "It’s one thing too many." And she serves on the High Bridge economic development committee. Another project involved installing planters for flowers up and down Main Street. Still another was organizing the High Bridge Pooch Parade, an annual event that occurred for five years. After a two-year hiatus, it’s set to come back in August 2002. Anyone with a dog may enter; first prize is a one-year supply of dog food. (Go to HighBridge.org for information.) Then there’s the Saturday concert series going on this month at the town bandstand, another of Whited’s projects. From saving old bedspreads to embellishing the great outdoors, Whited has journeyed a long way from her first hat design in childhood. And the designs just keep on coming … |
| * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Please feel free to email me. I check it daily and will make every effort to reply in a timely fashion. Call me directly, at 908-638-4426, alternate number if busy: 908-638-9066, to place your order. I am available 9 A.M. to 9 P.M. EST. Please call during those hours only. CoCo:Chenille, Inc. 76 Main Street High Bridge, New Jersey 08829 Telephone: (908)638-4426 or (908)638-9066 Email: christina@cocochenille.com. Use a subject line that includes the word "chenille". Emails with no subject or without the word "chenille," will be deleted as SPAM. Web: www.cocochenille.com I will not make your email address available to anyone else and will maintain your privacy. Copyright 2008 / CoCo:Chenille, Inc./Christina Lynn Whited |