Wednesday, July 25, 2007

It's the Little Things

My friends and I started making doll quilts in the mid 1980s and we’ve never stopped. We’re inspired by many styles of quilt as well as the work of our favorite professional quilters. But more than anything, we are encouraged and challenged by one another.

We often joke that the surest form of flattery is having one of our quilts reproduced by a friend. Sometimes, we save one another the trouble and just make a few duplicates to gift or exchange. As a result, our doll quilt collections contain “sister quilts” that reflect our friendship and admiration for one another’s needlework.



12" x 16" 1989
This Variable Star quilt was a collaboration between my friend Kathy S. and myself. The fabrics and quilt design were inspired by an antique doll quilt. I liked hers so much that I promised to hand quilt it for her if she’d piece one for me.

I love the look of dense quilting, even on a small project. But to prevent stiffness from all that stitching, I used flannel as a filler instead of batting. It left the quilt soft but unfortunately, the texture from the quilting only shows up on the back.

6 comments:

  1. I have used flannel a couple of times on large quilts to gain that lighter, soft feel. Your doll quilt is a very nice one - such teensy little stitches *s*

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  2. like the pink and yellow...beautiful stitches!

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  3. I love little quilts! I just found your blog and hope to see many more pictures of little quilts! will go back and read your old messages.
    Do you hand quilt all of them?
    can you show some of your favorites?
    do you use antique quilt pictures as your inspiration for your little quilts or do you use patterns?
    Kathie

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  4. Kathie, Thanks for visiting my blog. I'm going to focus on my doll quilts for the rest of my summer blogs. I don't really use patterns, although I'm tempted by some of Lori Smith and Jo Morton's great designs. I usually just take a traditional block design and scale it down in size. Most of my older doll quilts are hand quilted. But because of MS, I've lost the use of my good hand and do more and more with the machine. Diane

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  5. Ummm, this one is lovely too! Heck all of them are! I've been mmissing out!

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  6. Ohh this pink quilt. I have to make something like this too!

    Lucy
    Netherlands

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