Week of May 21, 2017 – Antique Doll Quilts and Beds
Last time I told you that I would share some antique Doll Quilts and Beds with you and here they are! I absolutely love an antique bed with an antique Doll Quilt on it. I can almost imagine my mother playing with them when she was a little girl and tucking her dolls under the quilt to spend the night.
This first one is a wooden bed with a quilt full of half square triangles. There seems to be a bit of randomness to it. Perhaps the creator meant to make them into pinwheel blocks but it didn’t always work out. I wonder if it was a little girl’s first quilt…?
As much as I love antique beds and quilts I am not a doll collector which is probably a good thing. I collect enough fabrics and quilts to make up for it. I never was very fond of dolls even as a child. I would much rather have had a teddy bear. But, whatever…I digress. I do love to make up the beds using old hankies as sheets and pillow cases made from old linens. This second bed is beautifully carved wood and has adorable modified Dresden Plate blocks set in green sashing.
This third one reminds me once again that simplicity is often the best. What could be easier than making 9-patches into a quilt? This little brass bed has a quilt made with the colorful little 9-patches set with cream colored plain blocks. The two pillows are covered with pillow cases that I made. At an antique shop, I found a dozen fancy little linen Tea napkins and they sewed together perfectly into a dozen little pillowcases leaving a lace edge.
This last bed is an Adirondack style bed made with sticks. I must confess that I made the little quilt – it is not an antique. But the dark colors and reproduction fabrics make it look like it could have come from the mid to late 1800s. I also used a lovely linen cloth with a beautiful needle worked edge on it, as my “sheet”. I think the beds look so much nicer when they are fully made up with a quilt, pillow and linens. After all who wants to sleep on a bed without them?
I hope I might have inspired you to create your own little doll quilt. It doesn’t have to be fancy to be adorable. It just needs to be small. And it seems to me that most anything that is miniaturized is irresistible.
Just for You – Quilt Quote: “I’ve spent most of my life making quilts. The rest I’ve just wasted.”
If you have any comments or questions, please contact Phyllis at: MtnQltr@aol.com