Handicraft for Girls: Finishing the Doll Quilt

Hullo! Finally, we are finishing this doll quilt! :-) All the patterns have been stitched up, and overhanded together. Now it says in the book to baste it to lining, turn in and overhand together. Well, as much as I did start to enjoy overhanding, I regret to report that I did not finish it this way as I was not looking forward to overhanding for the rest of my days (it's quite tedious if the fabric is thick!)

Instead I decided to use some bias tape I had laying around and used some left-over fabric for the lining.

Now, I must admit I have never applied bias binding to a quilt all by myself before! So I kind of had to google my way on this one :-) I found this tutorial by the Sew to Speak blog to be just right for my newbie comprehension skills.

In reaching my corners, I marked where I should stop or begin with a pen as I was afraid my estimation skills would mess it up.

After sewing on the bias tape, I trimmed all 3 layers close to the stitch line since my bias tape was not that wide and would appreciate not having all that bulk when turning over.

After the binding was put on, I then prepared some yarn cut to 4" length to use for tacking the quilt.

I tried using just a needle to do this, but goodness! I had such a battle making it go thru all the layers! So, a better idea had to be conjured. A few weeks ago I had picked up a setting tool at a local bookstore for no particular reason. Okay, the reason is always "might need this one day" :-) Well, that and it looked cute. Anyways, I took it out and made some holes for my yarn to gracefully glide into.

And it worked beautifully! (Although it was so efficient, it was punching the holes straight thru my cutting mat!)

After putting in all the tacking, it looked quite a bit sparse so I put one more thread in. This time just going under the stitch and not thru the hole.

And that is the end of the doll quilt :-) I don't have any daughters with dolls, and my dolls are a little too small for this quilt... but I do have a real live baby boy who will enjoy pulling all the yarn on this :-)

If there is anything in old embroidery ebooks that you would like me to feature here, or someone who makes stuff from them, do let me know! It would be great to share with everyone else the treasure trove in these books. Have a lovely week ahead everyone!

(To get all the patterns and see the work in progress: click here)