Teach Your Child To Sew
Pattern for Easy Strip Quilt

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An easy strip doll quilt

This simple old-fashion scrap doll quilt is a good place to begin teaching your daughter to sew. It will give her practice in sewing straight seams and will be "forgiving" if the size of the seams is a little off. You will need to have some basic sewing skills yourself to teach this lesson and you will need a sewing machine.

You can make this doll doll quilt any size you like. If your daughter has a doll bed, you might lay the doll on the bed and decide how big your would like the quilt to be. I usually make blankets for my granddaughters' American Girl® dolls 18" by 20" (which covers them nicely when they are laying down) or 22" by 24" (which drapes well over the doll and a bed).

The doll quilt in our sample is 22" by 24". For this quilt, cut strips of fabric 2 1/2" wide by 24 1/2" long. Cut 5 strips from a medium or light fabric and 6 from a dark fabric. The seam allowance is 1/4".

Allow your daughter to choose the fabrics she would like to work with but offer information about which colors go together. In the sample, we have chosen five strips that are medium to light shades of a rusty peach and six strips that are dark with a little rusty peach in them. (Some of these strips are pieced together because we did not have scraps that were 24 1/2" long. The seams are not noticeable.) Since we only had two dark scraps that included rusty peach, we used two strips that were green and four strips that were brown.

After you cut the 11 strips of fabric, place them over the back of a couch in this order: dark, light, dark, light, etc. With your daughter, stand back and look at them. Squint your eyes a little so the fabrics are a little blurred and you will see a pattern with the dark and light fabrics. This will begin to teach her to look at the overall design of a quilt and not just the individual fabrics it is composed of. (If you squint your eyes and look at the layout of the fabrics below, you will see one has a distinct pattern and the other looks random.)

Have your daughter sew the strips together in the order chosen. The seams should be pinned before they are sewn as the fabric has a tendency to stretch. If this is her first sewing project, pin all the seams for her and have her do the sewing. Encourage her to sew slowly and carefully, but never make her wrong for mistakes. If she sews off the edge of the fabric, just calmly praise her for what she is doing well and suggest she sew that seam over. Fortunately, these seams can be sewn many times to get a fairly straight line that will hold. If something needs to be ripped out, you might rip it out yourself while she continues to sew. Never make big deal about gliches or it might stop being fun and creative for her. Press all the seams to one side with the iron. If your daughter knows how to iron and will be doing the pressing, it is easier if she irons each seam as she sews it rather than all at once when she is done. Once the seams are finished, chances are the top and bottom of the doll quilt will not form a straight line. Trim the edges so they are straight.

There are several ways you can finish the doll quilt. If this is the first quilt your daughter has made, the easiest way to finish it is to just put a backing on it with no stuffing. Spread the backing out on a table with the right side up. Lay the quilt top down on the backing with the wrong side up. Cut the backing out so that it is exactly the same size as the top. Pin the backing and top together around the four edges of the doll quilt. On one side, mark a space about 6" long that will be left open. Then sew around the quilt leaving the 6" long space open. Clip the square corners off close to the seam. Then turn the quilt so the right sides of the fabric are on the outside. Sew the 6" space closed with either a slip stitch or sew around the entire doll quilt with a seam that is very close to the edge.

Another option to finish the doll quilt is to use a piece of flannel or quilt batting and stuff the doll quilt. In our example, we used a thick piece of batting as stuffing. First, lay the batting or flannel down on a table. Then lay the backing down over it with the right side up (see the picture on the left). Lay the doll quilt top down on the backing with the right side down (see the picture below). Cut the batting and backing so they are exactly the same size as the top. Pin around the four edges of the doll quilt. On one side, mark a space about 6" long that will be left open. Then sew around the edges of the doll quilt, leaving the 6" long space open. Clip the square corners off close to the seam. Then turn the quilt so the right sides of the fabric are on the outside. Sew around the entire doll quilt with a seam that is very close to the edge which will close the 6" long space and help the quilt to lay flat.

The doll quilt can be considered complete at this point. Or you can have your daughter quilt it on the machine. (If you are familiar with quilting and have a walking-foot for your sewing machine, definitely use it. It will help to keep the top of the quilt from stretching and little puckers from forming every time you sew over a pin.) First sew quilting lines in the seams between the strips (stitch-in-the-ditch technique). Pin each seam with at least four pins before you sew because the fabric has a tendency to stretch.

After you have sewn these quilting lines, you will notice that the doll quilt will not want to lay down flat. See how wrinkled the edges of the doll quilt are in the picture on the left.

Next, working from the back side, draw lines horizontally across the doll quilt every 2" (Or draw them whatever spacing you need to to come out even. The doll quilt should be 24" long, but chances are the length will be off. Not to worry, just make the squares as accurate as you can.) Quilt across all the lines you have drawn.

Now you have a nice fluffy doll quilt that makes a perfect comforter for a doll bed. To the right see a picture of the same doll quilt lying flat on the floor.

By the way, if your daughter (or granddaughter, or friend) makes this quilt, we would love to have a picture of her with the quilt to post on this website! Also, feedback on the usefulness of this pattern would be greatly appreciated.

Infinite Freedom

My prayer is for a world so safe and abundant...
where all who love to sew are free to sew...
where all have the resources they need to sew...
and no strife or war can touch anyone who wants to sew.

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