dollhouse quilt top tutorial

Well, today is my 'due date' (eek!). So here is a tutorial for a doll house quilt top! I made this to put in the hospital bag I packed for my daughter back in May and the original tutorial appeared in the intrepid threads June newsletter. 

Dollhouse Quilt Top Tutorial

By Jen @ thecraftingfiend.blogspot.com for the Intrepid Thread

You will need:

1. A Fat quarter bundle of “Apple of my Eye” by Riley Blake
2. Double sided interfacing – I used heat and bond lite. (Do not use ultra! It is not sew-able)
3. Usual sewing supplies
4. Felt scraps

Pattern pieces for furniture: Page 1, Page 2

For the room blocks:

Pick 3 FQ's and cut to 12” x full width (21”) These will be your room blocks

Bedroom

• closet and pieces. For assembly fold over and hem the closet front
• For the bed blanket cut a piece that measures 7.5” x 4.475”. Fold over one of the 7.5” sides and hem
• Interface the back closet piece and the bed frames, front and back
• stitch the blanket behind the back bed frame (see picture). Then iron on the closet and back bed frame. Arrange the front bedpost and front closet and do a tight zigzag around them and lightly iron on the front bedpost to keep down.

(to show you the blanket and bedframe)

(completed bedroom – except yours will look better because I oops-ed and used heat n' bond ultra)

Living Room:

• Interface the back toy chest and couch piece. Iron them on where you like them.
• Fold over and hem the front of the toy chest piece and stitch on by doing a zigzag around the entire toy chest
• Cut a square 3.5”x6” for the couch cushion. Hem 3 sides, and stitch those 3 sides onto the couch, lightly stuff and then stitch down the 4^th side. Zigzag around the entire outside of the couch.
• For extra decor I added a picture frame cut out of felt and an applique made by cutting out one of the apples on the FQ's. I think it looks like a giant toy stuffed apple.

Completed room

Kitchen:

• Out of felt cut: Oven & elements, chairs, back of clock piece, pie plate, and table stem.
• Out of fabric cut: table cloth, clock face, and pie top
• Interface all pieces, arrange as you like on the room block (iron down), and stitch them down.

Completed kitchen

Felt Doll:

• I made a felt doll using an old pattern my mom had from when I was a kid. It measures 7”tall and arm span is 5.5”. I did a button on her centre for putting clothes on and off because I want my daughter to practice her buttoning skills.
  
  

  

  
  

Assembly of Pieces and Quilt Top:

• Sew the completed room blocks together. I did the bedroom at the top, living room in the middle and the kitchen at the bottom.

• Take the yellow FQ and cut into 3” strips that are the full 21” length. This should give you 6 strips (one a bit thicker than the others).

1. Sew 2 strips together and then sew another 2 strips together by the short ends.

• Sew thicker strip to the top of the room blocks and then one long strip up each side of the quilt.
  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

• Now to continue up the strips

1. Use that last strip of yellow to cut into 2 strips that are 5” long.
2. Pick a floral and cut 2 strips that measure 5” x 3”
3. Now take your blue fat quarter and cut 4 strips that measure 5”x 19” (you won't have to cut the 19” it just is the length)
4. Sew the strips together, yellow at the bottom, then the floral and then 2 blue strips. Do this for each side of the house.
5. Sew each side strip to the house sides.

• Take the green fat quarter and cut 4” x 35” (you'll need to piece it to get 35”).
  35” should be the completed width of the quilt top right now.

• For the top I did a row 3.5” x 35”. You will need to do a fair bit of piecing to get this since you will mostly just have scraps to work with if you want to keep blue on the top.

Congratulations! You have now completed your dollhouse quilt top! If you have any questions feel free to
email me at: thecraftingfiend@gmail.com

To update you all we had our gorgeous second daughter on September 13! Exactly 39 weeks along. I went to bed feeling fine - like I was going to be pregnant forever, and at 12:30am I woke to a water burst and we raced to the hospital and our little girl was born at 2:06 am! She is petite (5lbs6oz but nearly 20 inches long) and she is perfectly healthy and I'm not feeling too badly either, though pretty tired...