Friendship Braid Doll Quilt (Semi-tutorial)

Today, I thought I would share with you a doll quilt I made for my niece this Christmas. I started this when I was at retreat this fall. In fact, I finished both tops at retreat. But it took me this long to get back to them, quilt them, and finish them up. Well, I've only finished one. I need to finish the other one still.

I think it turned out really cute! The "braids" were made from a jelly roll of Delighted, by Amanda Herring (The Quilted Fish) for Riley Blake. My quilt store had started carrying her jelly rolls for this line, and i wanted to reward that, so I bought one. It was a half jelly roll, in that it only had 21 strips in it. I wasn't sure what I would do with it, but then I decided to make this! (By the way, I was able to get TWO doll quilts out of the one jelly roll with 21 strips in it, plus a bunch of half hexagons are left over. Not enough for another quilt. I'm saving those...maybe a doll pillow or something out of those?)

The borders are red Kona and and the outer border is a 1930s preproduction fabric I found in Shipshewana at the retreat. Instead of a binding, I decided to put this jumbo ric rac on, which I also found in Shipshewana at the retreat. I think it turned out really cute, overall. What do you think?

I thought you might like to know how I made it. I'm calling this a semi-tutorial, becuase it's not as detailed as I like to write my tutorials, but it should be close enough for most of you to get the idea. Plus, the idea wasn't really mine. I adapted the idea from something I saw on TV.

This doll quilt was inspired by a full-sized quilt I saw on Fons and Porter (Episode 1809: Batik Braid). Then, Mary Fons posted a video tutorial of making a smaller version of the braid block on QNNtv.com. Here it is, for your convenience (it took me a while to find it!):

http://www.qnntv.com/videos/1022-how-to-start-a-quilting-braid/

(I tried to insert the video here for you, but Typepad wouldn't let me.)

In the video, they show you how to make the friendship braid using a half hexagon ruler. I love this technique! However, they really didn't provide any measurements or finishing techniques, so that's the part I'll add. So, the first thing I did was to cut my 2 1/2" jelly roll strips down to 1 1/2". I saved the 1" strings that were left for my scrap bag. :-) Then, I constructed my braids as shown in the video. It was really quite easy and fun. After you get the first two sewn together, it's really easy to see now the next piece fits on. And they worked up pretty fast.

I cut my strips down to 17 1/4". I know that is sort of a random length. I wanted the strips to be about 17" finished, and I just cut the longest length I could out of the braid strips I had made. They were about 3 3/8" wide after trimming. Then, I cut the red border strips. I cut my border strips 1 1/2" wide. I sewed one to the left side of each braid, except the last one. On the last one, I sewed the border strip to the right side of the braid. Then I sewed them all together, so it went, red border, braid, red border, braid, red border, braid, red border, braid, red border. Then, I sewed a 1 1/2" border strip to the top and bottom.

Then, I added the blue border. It was cut 2 1/2" wide.

Next, I basted the ric rack on to the edges of the quilt top. Here, you can see I used my walking foot. I have my needle in the far right position, and I'm stitching less than 1/4". See where the fabric is aligned on with the ric rac, and see that little piece of blue fabric sticking out underneath? I was aligning that with the left side of the open slit in my walking foot. 1/4" would be aligned with the outside edge of my walking foot. So, I suppose I was sewing about 1/8" from the edge of my fabric.

I always find corners a little tricky with ric rac, so let me show you what I did. I stopped at the corner with my needle down. Now, remember, when this is turned to the outside, that ric rac is going to need a little extra fullness to be able to stretch around the corner. So, to give it that fullness, here is what I did.

While the needle was down, I simply rotated the ric rac around the needle and aligned it with the edge and contined sewing. I allowed there to be fullness on the left side of my needle and tried not to sew any tucks in. I did that all the way around. When I got to the end, I just tucked the raw edges in toward the center of the quilt and sewed over it. Sorry, I forgot to take a photo of that.

Next, I took the quilt top to the cutting board and laid it out right side up. I placed my backing fabric, cut to the same size as the top, over it, right side down. So, right sides were facing. Then, I laid my batting, also cut to size, on top of that. I pinned it all the way around. I took it to my sewing machine and sewed around, this time at a quarter inch. I put it with the wrong side of the quilt top up so I could see my previous basting line with the ric rac. This helped me make sure I was always inside the basting line. See how fabric is now aligned to the right outside edge of my walking foot this time? Make sure you leave an opening to turn the quilt right side out.

On this step, you have to be particularly careful on the corners. Remember that fullness we left in the ric rac earlier? Well, it's easy to stitch that down and create a tuck here. I found I had to stick my finger or stiletto in on the corners now and then to sort of keep those tucks out of the way. Even then, I had to unsew one corner and try again, because I sewed in a really unsightly tuck. And in another corner, I had a tuck, but I didn't notice it until after the quilting was done, so I left it in. Maybe someone has a better suggestion for how to do those corners.

I took this photo just to show you that my quilt backing is sandwiched in there between the quilt top and the batting.

After you turn it right side out, press, pull that ric rac out nicely as you're pressing. Also, slip stitch the opening closed.

Then, quilt it. First, I stitched in the ditch on each side of all the red borders to hold things together before quilting the rest.

I really wanted to fill the braids with feathers. But, I chickened out. I was feeling rushed, and I didn't think I'd do well feeling rushed. So, I might try that on the next one. Instead, I marked a "chain" with chalk and quilted that. I learned I'm not very good at following a chalked line. I like free motion quilting where I just go for it better! LOL. When did I ever think I'd hear myself say that?!

I used a decorative stitch on my sewing machine to sew a little feather stitch (I think that's what it's called) in the red borders.

I want to mention that I did not do any basting before I quilted it. That was a mistake. I had some issues with that. I would recommed that after you turn it, press it, and stitch the opening closed, you safety pin based the quilt sandwich together before you quilt. Lesson learned. I was in a hurry and skipped this step. I had a tuck or two on the front as a result. Lucky for me the crinkling hid most of that.

Here is a shot of the outer borders and how the ric rac turned out. I really like that as an edge for this doll quilt. It fits so well with the style of the fabrics.

More of the quilting. Washing it and letting it crinkle hid a multitude of sins, once again.

Here is the back. Another 1930s reproduction from Shipshewana. I would have used some Delighted, but I didn't have any yardage of it, and the store didn't have it either. But this was a cute backing, I thought. Incidentally, the finished measurements of this quilt are 20" by 22 1/2".

Since I forgot to take a photo of how I sewed the ric rac ends into the quilt, I took this close up shot of that part to give you an indication. I just bent it toward the inside, sewed over it, and clipped the excess off. The raw edges are, therefore, all to the inside. I didn't worry about how the "bumps" met up. It looks just fine, and no one will ever see the difference. It's not noticable on the quilt. I bet you didn't see it at all in the first photo. (You can see how wobbly I was at trying to stay on my chalked line with the "chains" I quilted in the borders. haha! Don't hold it against me!)

When I finished it, I showed it to Sweet Pea and asked her how she liked it. She went, "Meh." I asked her if she wanted me to finish the other one for her. She said, "No, make it for someone else." Wow! She is really not into these colors or something. Plus, she has the doll quilt SHE made now, so everything else pales in comparison. BUT, it made me really nervous about giving it to my niece. I thought maybe she wouldn't like it either. She has a lot of American Girl dolls, so I was hoping she'd like this for one of them. Well, when she opened it, she pulled it out of the box and hugged it. She said, "Mine!" My mom tried to reach over to touch it, and she turned away a little. I think she was afraid it was going to get taken away from her. I guess that's good. I think she liked it. I hope so, anyway. I'll finish the other one and give it to another little girl.

Hope you like this little mini/pseudo tutorial. Sorry I'm getting to it so late. I had hoped to have this done BEFORE Christmas as an idea for a Christmas present for some little girl. But, it didn't happen. Maybe you can tuck it in your files for this year. Or, better yet, make it now, while the year is still young.

Yeah. Like that would ever happen at my house either.

Until next time,

Mama Pea

Comments

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Wow! What a darling doll quilt. I love the rick rack edge. I've always wanted to do that, but have been afraid. Thanks for your tutorial. It will sure help. thanks for the links too. I'm off to go watch them. I'll have to link to your post. It is great!

Posted by: carolld | January 15, 2012 at 06:39 PM

First of all you did a beautiful job!!! Amazing tutorial. I have wanted to try adding ric rac before but have been too chicken. I think your niece loved it. She looks so sweet in the pic.

Posted by: Linda | January 15, 2012 at 07:27 PM

That is a sweet quilt, Stephanie. I do love the jumbo rick-rack for the binding. Very nice. Rick-rack makes all things good :D

Posted by: Sue | January 15, 2012 at 08:12 PM

Very cute quilt! I like the ric rac. I've never used any of the jumbo ric rac but have thought of buying some a few times. Maybe next time I see some I'll buy it. How much did you use for your doll quilt?

Posted by: Lynn | January 15, 2012 at 09:20 PM