My little girl is into dolls all of a sudden. I bought her a little doll bed from Ikea, but the linen that came with it was… awful. So, I dug out some scraps and decided to make something better for her.
I rustled up some leftover April Showers (and probably some other Bonnie and Camille bits and pieces) and printed out from the internet some hexagon templates onto thicker paper.
I cut out the hexagons carefully, then used an EPP glue stick to baste the fabric on to the hexagons.
Then I set to work at joining the hexagons. The little pillow came together very quickly, as did the mattress, but the doll’s quilt took a bit longer. I think there’s probably about two weeks worth of short TV shows in there (to be fair, I sew small stitches and don’t watch a lot of TV 🙂 ).
Last night I put the quilt top together with some wadding and backing (matching the mattress and the back of the pillow – also from April Showers) and when my little girl woke up this morning there was a nice surprise for her.
She loved it! So do I… and I love that I am teaching her that the best toys are handmade. Now she can get back to her favourite game, which consists of feeding, putting to bed, putting on nappies and clothes, and toilet training one poor harangued doll. If that poor doll could speak!
Since the favourite doll was in bed with little miss, these three got tucked in for the first snooze in the new linen. They seem pretty happy about it!
The great thing about working with paper pieces is that you don’t need a pattern or a fixed design, you can work it out as you go, adding another row here or there as you like.
Have a great day.
jf
finchley street 