I made a doll quilt today. It is only 14 x 18 ” and it took me all day despite being fairly simple (and small!) but I loved working on it. I used this tutorial by Amanda Jean of Crazy Mom Quilts as a guideline. I previously made a twin size bed quilt for my niece and gave it to her for her 8th birthday last year. She and her brother (and mother and father) (and dog!) will be visiting me in DC for Christmas. She has an American Girl doll that looks like her so I thought it would be fun to make the doll a matching quilt and give it to her at Christmas.
Twin size quilt
Doll quilt
You know how a coin is often used in a picture to show how small something is? Well, I thought a dollar bill would be a better indicator for the size of this. The quilt was pieced using 2 1/2″ squares which gave a 2″ finished block.
Fabric squares on design wall.
Once I had those all sewn together, I added the borders and then fused 1″ square pieces to the middle of each of the 2″ blocks. I did stitch around the edges of these little 1″ squares to make sure they stay put. Finally I quilted the whole (little) thing and that was a real labor of love because I actually tried to match the quilting design to the larger quilt. The larger quilt was quilted by Marina Baudoin on a longarm machine.
Quilting on 8″ block
Quilting on 2″ block
Talk about “fine motor skills!”
I bound both quilts with multicolor binding.
Doll quilt
I’m really happy with the result. I hope my niece and her doll like it!
Addendum:
I guess they do!
I Finally Have Time 
What a sweet gift! Lucky girl.
Linda, I have enjoyed so much your recent posts. The tree door hanging, the donkey runner and now this doll quilt! You are constantly creating and that makes me want to get going. I am making an apron for Caroline and using the walnut pressing tool that JB made. It works so well and saves me many trips to the ironing board. I will send a picture when I finish it.
More soon and. I know I will see more of your handiwork.
Love, Sharon
Sent from my iPhone
What a pretty and thoughtful gift! She will love them!
Excellent gift for a doll’s bed. I think she is going to LOVE it.
she’s gonna love it!! That was so smart with the appliqued squares.
The free motion quilting replicating the bigger quilt is a terrific idea .
Love the doll quilt, especially the machine quilting. Most importantly, I’m glad you had fun making it!