Doll Quilt Exchange This Month

There is a doll quilt exchange going on right now at Lori's blog, (Humblequilts.blogspot.com), and I signed up to make a little quilt for someone else.  First I looked on the internet for ideas, and spent a little time looking at doll quilts at The Quilt Index. (www.quiltindex.org)  If you have never looked there, it's a wonderful place to see old quilts and study them from the comfort of your living room.  Once on their site, you can search the quilt records from the top righthand box on their main page to find what kind of quilt you are looking for.  I searched using the "advanced search" feature, and looked at quilts in the date range of 1876-1900, and put the word "doll" in the pattern name spot.  There were 47 doll quilts for me see with this particular search.

Here's a picture of the one I chose as my inspiration for the little doll quilt I am making:

I studied this quilt, and saw that it was made up of four patches, and calculated the size of the quilt if the squares were one inch each.  It would be about 18" X 18".  I wanted it smaller, so I cut the squares l.25"X1.25", to finish at 3/4" each.  

It is basically a nine patch made up of 4 patches with nine four patches that are all  little 3/4" squares, and 5 patches that are nine patches with four patches in them (the pink and white squares).  Confusing, I know, but here's a picture of my quilt with the nine patches all laid out ready to sew together:

The original quilt had no binding (edges were just turned in) and no batting, but I finished this one with thin batting and used binding that was cut 2 inches wide and double folded.  

After I assembled the quilt and bound it, I tea-dyed it to make it look older. It looks like it should be some kind of game board doesn't it?   Here's a picture of the completed quilt next to an old Chinese checkers board.  My Hitty doll is in the picture too.  She is dressed in brown, and has a little coral pink necklace, so she looks great with the little doll quilt.

The quilt finished at slightly less than 14 inches square.

I am not going to show you the complete label, as I don't want to reveal the person who will own this little quilt until it reaches her.  But here is a partial picture.  I am trying to do better work with labels, plus I have a goal of putting labels on all the quilts I have made in the past.

The label fabric is the muslin before tea-dying and the back of the quilt shows the darker result of the same fabric after the tea bath.  It really does age the look of the quilt.

I hope you have a great Monday, and I'm heading over to Judy Laquidara's blog to look at design walls.  (Here)