Child and Doll Skirts Featuring Another 1930s Reproduction Fabric

I’ve had this delightful 1930’s reproduction dog fabric for several years. It never called out to me to use it in a quilt, probably because black and white quilts are just not in my wheelhouse.

But it’s perfect fabric for a birthday present for a dog-loving neice and her American Girl Doll!

The skirt pattern is the Bubbles & Buttons Skirts and Doll Skirts, OAD 86, sizes 1-8 and an 18 inch doll, by olive ann designs. This is full skirt that has elastic in the back waistband. The child’s and doll’s skirts are made exactly the same way. Those are functional buttons on the doll’s skirt! No hook and loop tape in sight!

I added the contrasting color on the inside of the pockets. I really like the light pink accent on the black and white fabric.

I has happy to discover that even though the doll skirt is intended for an 18 inch doll, with the waistband elastic a bit looser, it perfectly fits a 20 inch Bamboletta Forever Friend. I don’t have an 18” doll, so looking around my house for a doll to act as a model, I tried it on my Bamboletta Forever Friend. It fit! So exciting because I usually have to draft patterns for clothes the Bamboletta dolls. And even more fun because I wouldn’t draft this detailed an skirt for doll.

The T shirt is a free pattern from Pixie Faire. It’s a great pattern and went together quickly and easily.

I’m so happy that this dog fabric finally found a perfect home in this twin project!

Using my 1930's Fabrics for Clothing, not Quilts!

I’ve been digging around in my quilting stash for fabrics to make other projects. I just made 2 projects using my stash of reproduction 1930s fabrics. I love these reproduction fabrics, but since most of my recent quilts have had a modern edge, I just haven’t been using them.

The baby dress above, is made with one of the 1930s reproduction fabrics, with a solid cotton as the interfacing. The pattern is NEWLOOK 6568. This baby dress is a lot like the doll clothes I make. Except, it has a button closure in back, not velcro.

Gasp. Buttons mean making button holes. That’s not a skill in the quilter’s wheelhouse! I knew my second hand Bernina wasn’t up to the task. So I got out my newer Janome Memory Craft 6700P machine, watched a couple YouTube segments and now I can make button holes! Easy Peasy!

Buttons! The button holes aren’t “perfect” but they definitely are good enough!

There is lots of gathering in this sweet little baby dress and I love the flair they give the skirt!

Here’s the other outfit using reproduction 1930s fabrics that I’ve finished recently. This is for the little Waldorf baby doll I designed. it’s a little pioneer outfit.

Prairie outfit for a little Waldorf type doll

I used the tutorial for making prairie bonnet pattern from the blog ScatteredThoughtsofaCraftyMom to draft a tiny bonnet for this doll. Jamie’s instructions are for a custom fit bonnet so it was super simple to use it to make a doll bonnet.

I drafted my own patterns for the dress and apron.

Here’s the back of the Prairie outfit.

This tiny 1930s print is just perfect for this little doll!

I just pulled out another 1930s reproduction, a black fabric with dogs, to make a child’s skirt. I have the perfect pattern….and it has lots of buttons!! So I’ll get more practice making button holes soon!

Notice: This blog is not monetized: I do not use affiliate links. When there are links in a post, they are to give credit to another creative person, because I like or have used a product, or to help the reader easily find supplies for a project.

Lab Puppies Quilt

Lab puppies!!  I'm really looking forward to working on this new quilt project.  I'm using my Black Lab Puppies fabric, available at my shop at Spoonflower.com, and some of my stashed collection of 1930s feed sack reproduction fabrics.

The puppies are printed on baby blue, light blue, aqua, pink and peach backgrounds--all colors which coordinate beautiful with the 30s fabrics.

My fussy cut Lab Puppies block is 4 inches x 5 inches.  I'll pair them with striped blocks the same finished size. The strips for the pieced block are cut 2 inches wide.  Sewing 3 strips together with 1/4 inch seams gives a block 5 inches wide. The strip pieced section can then be cut in 4 inch lengths to make 4 x 5 inch finished blocks.

I've put my cut strips in my drawstring bag and am going to try random piecing for the strip blocks! (I'm not good at sticking to random. We'll see)!!

It's going to be a happy, scrappy quilt!