My DD and SIL have a best friends whose small child is almost completely blind. He is almost 3 and loves to touch and feel things. I want to make him a rag quilt that he could touch and pet.

My question is can you use chenille and minky? Will the edges fray like a flannel rag quilt? I was thinking about making it mostly flannel with squares of minky chenille through out for extra texture.

Any ideas or suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

I wouldn't use either one in a rag quilt. They shed something fierce when you're working with them and any unfinished edges would continue to shed.

There is a thread here about a very tactile quilt with many ideas. Not awake enough to find at the moment.... Its about 2 women working with a blind and deaf patient... someone help me out with the link.... :)

don't use either one!!!

How hard would it be to make a regular quilt with minky or chenille then?

Here is an idea for you. Click on the "how to make a tactile quilt" link. It sounds pretty cool.

http://www.seeitourway.org/Archives/...ileQuilts.html

Or you could cut smaller squares of minky & chenille & then border them with flannel to bring them to the same size as your flannel squares. Then the flannel would be ragged but the minky & chenille would not have raw edges showing.

I have a friend whose nephew was born blind. Her idea for doing this very same thing is to use several different fabrics with various textures, bumps, weaves, etc. When I have been out & found remnants that would work, I have picked them up for her. One I found was left over from Halloween & had raised spider webs. Another had "bumps/nubs" on the fabric.
I'm not sure if she's made it for him yet, but it should turn out to be very tactile...