Friday, June 30, 2017

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.


2 comments:

  1. What a coincidence. I recently refinished a set of those same doll bunk beds for my granddaughter. They also were mine years ago. Wow. Your doll quilts are darling :)

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  2. Love the purple and scrappy quilt! And yay for the next generation being able to play with family toys.

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