Going small

This week, I finished up a gift for my wonderful friend Rachel, who's expecting her second little girl in September.

Her first little lady, Lucy, was the recipient of one of the first quilts I ever made, but I knew Rachel had already made a quilt for Sophie, so I decided to go a slightly different route.

I also figured with this being her second girl, she already had all the bibs, burp cloths, receiving blankets, etc. she could possibly want, so I focused on something for the girls instead.

The end result: two precious doll quilts for Lucy and Sophie. Of course, it'll be a while before Sophie will use hers, but I thought it would be fun for the sisters to have something they could play with together.

Lucy's doll quilt started with the same pink, orange, and yellow madras print that I used for the backing of her baby quilt. I matched it up with two cute pink and orange prints from my stash (Ooling in Fuchsia and Oval Elements in Papaya).

I broke it up a bit with some Kona White, and I quilted it with matching pink thread. I love how the thread shows up in the white sections.

I also used the madras print for the backing and binding, which I think pulls it all together nicely. Since it was a just a little doll quilt, I decided to try out Rae's cheater binding method, and it worked perfectly. As you can see above, the only real drawback is that the quilting extends past the binding stitching on the back of the quilt, but this seems really minor on a project like this.

I quilted it using straight lines in diagonals about 1.5 inches apart. So simple, but I love the way it looks.

Sophie's quilt shared the same design and similar colors, but I went with a pink, orange, and blue madras print and two different pink and orange prints (Ring Toss in Fuschia and Full Moon Polka Dot in Tangerine).

Interestingly, I originally bought the orange dot to use as the backing of Lucy's baby quilt, but when it arrived, it turned out to be more peach than orange and didn't work with the other oranges in the quilt. So it's been sitting in my stash ever since, just waiting for its chance to shine.

This one was also quilted with pink thread (a darker fuschia) in diagonal, straight lines and backed and bound with the madras using Rae's tutorial.

I created the design for the quilts, but it was heavily inspired by Cluck Cluck Sew's Strip and Flip Baby Quilt tutorial (I still really want to make this quilt someday) and Bijou Lovely's Modern Baby Quilt. (And in case you're interested, I'm hoping to get a quick tutorial up for this doll quilt very soon you can find a tutorial for the quilt right here!)

I particularly love how the madras worked as the binding on this one. The big, graphic stripes really stood out, and I love the pop of blue.

I mailed them off to Rachel this week, and now that they're safely in her possession, I'm so happy to show them off. They're so bright and fun, and I really hope the girls have a lot of fun with them.

Two sweet blankets for two precious sisters.