Crafts, I Cave to You

Er. Why am I posting a picture of a slightly gaudy, gold, doll bed?

Def not my typical sewing MO. See, I have this crazy dad. He's kind of old-ish. And crazy. (No really. No. REALLY.) But, he nicely decided to craft a couple doll beds for his grandchildren. This is a good thing. My DD got a nice pink doll bed for Christmas. My mom sewed some cute lil' plaid flannel bedding for it. I was real nice and, like, pink. Y'know, girl, schmirl schtuff.

Then, since my niece was visiting CA this month, he decided to finish up her bed and...paint it gold. This gold color. Um, not so popular with the general family opinion.

I, however, in my *cough* infinite fashion wisdom, was undeterred by this gold. I thought, "oh my gosh. I have the perfect fabric to go with this." Which, considering my embarrassing fabric stash, is not that surprising.

A few hours later, the bed was decked out. Something nice my dad made, combined with something fabulous that his daughter made. It gives me all sorts of weird feelings, but overall I am proud. I am glad that we could have something positive to put in the world. Yay this bed.

Fabric: Monkey's Business by Alexander Henry. Possibly one of my favorite fabrics in the world, ever. I constantly stare at it on my shelf and feel terrified to commit it to a project. As this coverlet and pillow took very little fabric, I instantly knew it was a perfect fit.

Pattern: My mom's homey plaid flannel bedding that she made for DD's pink doll bed. Seriously. I just measured it and copied her exactly, just with different fabric and ribbon. It's all smoke and mirrors--I'm only fronting all this creativity.

Love this shoe, ahhh! I pulled my niece into the stash room--coincidentally, also my bedroom--and let her pick out which panels she wanted. At first I think she was a little freaked out by the punky fairytale vibe, but then she excitedly pointed to this shoe. I was like, heck yeah, you are a woman after my own heart. Once I told her that the other panel(s) were Cinderella, she agreed to them as well, and we had a Theme.

Dunno what it is about toddler girls, but all the ones I know are obsessed with Cinderella. Sure, they like the other ones fine. But when push comes to shove, Cinderella always comes out on top. I guess I can't complain, because she was my fave when I was a little girl, too. Hmm.

As you can see, I put the Cinderella ball gown on the pillow and the cleaning Cinderella panel on the coverlet, for an all-Cinderella eye sweep. You also might notice that Cinderella's hair styles in these fabrics often obscure her face, causing only one eye to be visible. This may have been what threw off my niece.

Oh yeah, sewing. I used Wonder Under to fuse the panels to the coverlet, then satin stitched around them. The whole thing is actually doubled. I sandwiched the ruffles inside 2 rectangles--one appliqued, one plain--stitched around the edges, then turned and pressed.

The ruffles are gathered strips of the Princess and the Pea print from this line (those stripes are actually all stacked mattresses, which is ridiculously awesome). I serged each short end and the one long edge, pressed them up, and stitched close to the edge for the hems.

My mom had used narrow ribbon for the ties, which is totally her right, as this was her design, but I couldn't find any ribbon in my box that matched my fabric. I had this wide lavender satin stuff though, which after some contemplation seemed perfect.

Okay, now my genius family just needs to ship this to her, because, HELLO, a bed like this does not fit in a suitcase. D'oh!

That's all for now! I am off to camp with my hubby and kiddos and friends this weekend, so I probably won't get much sewing done. On Monday I should have some goooood Patty Young knits eye candy though, so stay tuned. Happy weekend, everyone!