Baby Doll Cradle and Finished Quilt

This is the baby doll cradle that we bought at the flea market. I thought it was a good deal because it is all wood and it was only $12!  You can tell it has been used a lot because it has a few "dirty" little fingerprints on it!  It just needs a good washing and that should take off the fingerprints.

I have put the actual baby doll and the little quilt that I made for it in the cradle so you can see how it will look all together.

It has curved pedestals so it can rock very easily.

 

 Now what I have to do is make a little mattress and pillow so the doll won't be uncomfortable, LOL!

I thought a couple of layers of batting inserted into a pillow type casing should do for the mattress and another couple of small layers for the pillow would be perfect! I think that I will actually attach the little pillow to the mattress so it won't get lost.  Anyway, if it needs washing, I can throw the whole thing in the washing machine!

I was also thinking of adding a few hexagons to the pillow cover.  A while back I made some 1/2" hexagons to see if I was interested in doing that size.  Since then, I have decided that they are too small for me and just put them away.  Those are just the right size for this project!

I will post more photos as I finish the mattress and pillow for the cradle.

Keep on quilting!

Aveli

Baby Doll Quilt Finished!

So Yesterday I finished the baby doll quilt! YAY!

I sewed the backing, which is purple and pink hearts, to the quilt top on the machine. You can see the backing in the picture below. I decided on sewing on the machine because I didn't think I had enough time to hand quilt. After I finished sewing the two layers together I needed to bind it and decided to use the border for binding.

First I trimmed the backing close to the quilt top edge as seen below in the picture.

 Next, I rolled the border back onto the backing and tucked it under itself and pinned. See picture below.
 

 

Here you can see the rolled border from the front -- before and after rolling and pinning.  

 

I hand stitched the binding in the back and that was it! I loved making this little quilt from all my scrap crumbs.(tiny pieces) It really did save a lot of fabric and makes a very nice little quilt for a baby doll for granddaughter! Now that I saw how cute this came out, I think I will use my other scrap strips to make a table topper for the cabin. Although, I wont use white for the sashing, maybe a wine.

Now to get back to the baby quilt that I am hand quilting for my neighbor's granddaughter who is expecting in September. I will post pictures of that quilt some time later this week when I am finished.

Keep on Quilting!

Aveli

They're Coming! They're Coming!

I feel like Paul Revere with that title. LOL! But, I am excited about my daughter's family visit. She called last night to say they would be here in 2 weeks!

Just barely have enough time to finish my granddaughter's baby doll quilt. I will have to stop working on my string quilt and my cross stitch project and finish that little quilt.

Maybe I should just machine stitch it together with the backing??  What do you think?

If I go ahead with the tying, I can tie it every 2 or 3 inches. The quilt top measures approximately 24"x 26".  If I tie every 2 inches, that means I will have 12 across by 13 down which equals 156 ties. Am I capable of finishing that many ties in 2 weeks? and then do the binding?

The binding is another question. I always do bindings by hand! Should I hand bind or machine bind? Help me out folks what would you do? It's really not a big quilt, but I also have to organize, stash, clean, dust, vacuum and child proof the cabin for their visit.  My granddaughter is only 2 years old, so I have to go over the cabin with a fine tooth comb to child proof.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.  I will start finishing it tomorrow.  Today my "dance card" is already full of preparations for the visit.

I will post the final decision as to the finishing of the baby quilt.  Let me know what you think!

Keep on quilting!
Aveli

A visit from our Youngest

This past week our youngest son has been visiting us while he was on vacation from work.  What a treat!
It is always great to have him come to visit us.  Even though he only lives 3 hours away, it is difficult to get our schedules on the same track.

So the first thing he says when he gets here is that he is going to barbecue.  Even though it wasn't until yesterday that he got an opportunity to do so, it was nice to hear.  He always makes a great meal!

This time he barbecued 2 whole chickens.  They were scrumptious! And today we get to enjoy more of the leftover chicken.  Makes for great sandwiches. . .especially when combined with the indian pueblo bread made by the Santo Domingo indians.  Yum Yum!

Sadly, he had to leave today. He goes back to work tonight. :(

While he was here, I was working on my string quilt. Making the blocks that is.  I started thinking about making a little doll sized quilt for my granddaughter. They are scheduled to visit some time in August, so I bought my granddaughter a small baby doll.  That way she could have a "baby" to play with while she was here.  Now I am thinking she would have more fun if she could wrap the doll in a blanket.  And of course, a simple receiving blanket type would not do. . .it has to be a quilt!!!

So I started sewing the feeder blocks that I make while working on a project.  You know, a little piece of paper with leftover pieces of fabric on it.  I am using strips of 8 1/2" x 2 or 2 1/2".  I mainly want to conserve the amount of trash I throw out so I recycle my printer paper and print on both sides of the paper.  Especially when I am trying out new layouts for my quilts. After printing on both sides, I cut some into fourths for note paper, i.e., grocery lists, notes to self or husband and so forth. Some of the printer paper goes into providing foundation paper for the feeder blocks.  I cut the printer paper in half to make two 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 pieces and then take those pieces and cut them in half again and end up with the 8 1/2 x 2 1/2 strips.

I layed out the feeder strips into a size that would enable my granddaughter to wrap the doll. I didn't like the layout.  So now, I have added white strips between each feeder strip.  It made the blanket larger and looks nicer I think.

I will finish sewing it up and take pictures tomorrow and post them here.