Doll Quilts

My niece, age 3, has doll bunk beds that used to be mine.  I've been wanting to make her some doll quilts for those bunk beds. I love that she has a toy of mine from my childhood, and I think it doubly cool that I can make quits now for those same beds that I played with. 

a trio of doll quilts

"vintage" doll bunk beds

The first quilt I made was a rainbow.  I used Kona Cardinal, Orange, Lemon, Sprout, Willow, Malibu, Morning Glory, and Carnation in the rainbow and Medium Gray for the binding.

I found a fabulous fabric featuring unicorns with rainbow manes at a LQS recently and knew I had to have some.  I immediately had my niece in mind for the fabric, since both rainbows and unicorns are on her list of favorite things. I used it on the back of the rainbow quilt. I don't think this picture does the fabric justice.

Since the bunk beds have rails, I made this one to the dimensions of the mattress. I was worried the rails would mean that overhang would be a problem.  But it felt too skinny, so I made the next one bigger.  I liked the dimensions of that so much better that I decided to make a third, so there would be two the correct size.  Keep in mind that the beds themselves are on the other side of the country from me, so I haven't seen how they look on the bed.

The second quilt is a simple checkerboard with 2 1/2" I Spy scraps.  I used Kona Mulberry leftover from her growth chart as the solid fabric.  The back is an Eric Carle Very Hungry Caterpillar print that my niece loves--she actually asked her mom to buy some when she saw it at a local children's museum.  Turns out Aunt Emily already had some, and I gave most of it to her mom.  But I kept enough to back a doll quilt since I knew she liked it.

The third quit was on a whim since I was unhappy with the size of the first quilt. My niece is crazy about cats, so I used the Missouri Star Quilt Company tutorial for their cat block.  I made this block as a hive crash for one of my bees last month and it's super easy.  I used scraps of a purple batik for the cat and Kona Blueberry leftover from Scrap Dance Tango for the background.

For the back, I used the last of the cat print that is on the back of her growth chart.  There wasn't quite enough for the entire back, so I pieced in some more of the purple batik used to make the cat for the front.

When my niece turned three, my sister-in-law made her this amazing purple doll house that is occupied by a family of small bears.  When my SIL sent me the picture of the bunk beds and the dimensions, she also sent me a picture of the bears' bed and said, "And just in case you feel like making a teeny tiny quilt for The Bear House...that measures 5"x7""  Well, how could I not??

You can kind of see the awesomeness that is the purple Bear House

Obviously, a purple Bear House needed a purple quilt.  I decided to make it reversible.  I couldn't think of a good pieced pattern for something so small, so I went with embroidery.  For one side, I chose a unicorn.  The fabric is Kona Lupine, with Bright Periwinkle binding.

For the other side, I chose a bear in a bed.  Yes, it's a bear in a bed, being covered by a quilt, as a design for quilt that will cover a bear in a bed.  It's probably the most meta thing I've made. This fabric is Kona Lavender.

Both embroidery designs are from this book, which we have had in my house *forever!*  We traced designs and used them for coloring when I was a kid.  I can't tell you how many school projects that needed to be illustrated I turned in with pictures I traced from this book.  And the most surprising thing is, the transfer ink still worked!  Now that I know that, I suspect there will be a lot more small embroidery projects in my future!

Doll quilts were #2 my list of Q2 goals for the globally hosted finish along.