A Quilted Blanket for Dolly

I've had a "charm" pack that I've been dying to use for some time now, but just didn't know what to create with it.

Here's a little description I found on-line about Bonnie & Camille's line called "ruby" for Moda Fabrics,

"Ruby is a small town girl with big dreams, and even bigger style. She works at the town ice cream parlor in her favorite red polka dot dress and can be found doing the jitterbug with her best girlfriends at the Country Diner on the weekends."

I just think that is the cutest fabric description!

Anyway, a "charm" pack is a collection of 5" x 5" squares of fabric, also often referred to as Charm Squares. They are super easy to work with...especially for the beginner quilter. Typically, the charm pack includes one square of every fabric from an entire collection which takes a lot of the guess work out of choosing coordinating fabrics if that is an overwhelming task to you.  (Personally, I struggle more with the ruler than I do the fabric coordination!  ha!)

Since you usually only have a couple of squares that are duplicates (in this case they are all of the tiny polka dot fabrics), I decided to create a small doll quilt for Mary.  While not yet finished, here is what I've completed so far with the piece work...

I pieced together a simple nine patch block, but decided that I wanted to make the doll quilt a bit larger to fit Mary's 18" American Girl doll, Suzanne.  (Mary named her...which makes me laugh because "Suzanne" is a total "1960s" name.  I grew up with a couple of "Suzannes" myself!  Mary nicknamed her "Suzy".  Cute.)  

To make the quilt larger, I added border to all four sides.  This is where things got a bit tricky for me for a couple of reasons. One, for two of the sides I used a geometric print that used straight lines.  I noticed after sewing my quarter-inch seams that fabrics that use lines are not quite as forgiving as bold, floral prints or tiny polka dots!  I also failed to take into account my four corners...which required me to cut 2.5" squares and then piece them in.  For a novice quilter, this was a bit tricky and thus my corners look a bit sloppy.  Not to mention, my corner fabric has roses running in a directional pattern which I also failed to take into account, thus I've got roses going both horizontally and vertically!

But here is the thing...this is my first "doll-size" quilt, a project much larger than a mug rug.  With each mug rug I created, my piecing and seams got better.  And while I have torn out several rows and restitched several times...I am going to leave my errors on this little doll quilt.  I feel like if I run across the street to my neighbor with it ripped out and have her stitch it for me, then I won't have gained some valuable insight as to why you piece in the order you do or why 1/4" seams are so vital to the finished product.

Here is the doll quilt fully pieced...

 

Note to self...never trim off strings while supervising small children..you might cut the corner of your fabric and cause yourself a minor heart attack!

So, I have three important steps left...

I need to find and purchase a coordinating fabric for the backing...

I need to actually quilt this little doll blanket, and 

finally, I will need to finish the quilt by binding the edges.

Hopefully, I will get this project finished over the weekend and can then sew a very special toddler his very own superhero cape!  We are projected to be back into the upper 70s by the weekend and my (super)kids will need to get outdoors after five straight days of rain!