I can hardly believe it but my baby girl has turned 2! When I first had Caroline I thought I was going to be sewing for her all the time. I made her some things during her first year, but at some point, I got too wrapped up in sewing for myself and stopped sewing for her. When it started getting close to her birthday I decided it was high time I made her some things.
Caroline got a few baby dolls for Christmas so I thought it would be really fun to make her the Baby Doll Basket from Made Everyday. It’s such a cute pattern and I love that it’s a great showcase for really fun fabrics. Grace from Maker Mountain Fabrics, who is one of my Instagram friends, contacted me about providing fabric from her shop for a sewing project of my choice. I knew I’d be able to find some great fabrics for the doll basket in her shop. It turned out to be a real challenge narrowing it down but I love the fabrics I picked.
I went with two fabrics from Cotton + Steel and one from Art Gallery Fabrics. First I picked Prickles, which is an adorable hedgehog print. I matched it up with Stardust Metallic, a gray with metallic polka-dotted fabric. I wanted a bright, contrasting fabric to use for the binding and I settled on these cute birds on the bright turquoise Beachcomber Tide fabric. The fabrics ended up working so well together! I love the neutral fabrics paired with the fun bright binding.
I think most of Caroline’s dolls would have fit in the small-sized basket, but I decided to make the medium so that it would still work as she gets bigger dolls. There was quite a bit of prep work before the actual sewing. I had to cut the outer fabric, the lining, the interfacing, and the batting. The pattern calls for high-loft batting, which helps give the basket structure. My basket ended up a little floppy and I’m not sure if my batting wasn’t as high loft as it was supposed to be. If I make this again I might do a double layer of interfacing to help it stand up on it’s own a little more than this one does. It’s not a big deal that it’s floppy, though, because Caroline has already tried to get in the basket herself numerous times. I think it’s going to be taking some abuse so it would probably end up floppy anyway!
The bias binding was really the most difficult part of this project. It was hard to wrangle the curved parts of the basket around the machine. I was really wishing I had about 100 wonder clips because I got poked and scraped by pins quite a bit during that process. I ended up swapping out my pins for the metal clips I use for quilt binding. That worked pretty well and I didn’t get scratched as much during the sewing process.
I used the hedgehog fabric for the lining and to make the mattress and pillow that go inside the basket. This is such a cute little touch in the pattern! If I make this again, I think I will use deeper seam allowances on the lining so that it fits a little better inside the basket. It’s a little loose and I think it would be nice if it was a little smaller.
I had some leftover fabric and I decided to make a mini quilt to match the doll bed. I have had the Fancy Fox quilt pattern for a while and I’d never used it. It was sooooo fun to make that little fox face! I used almost all of my scraps piecing the front and back of the quilt, which was very satisfying. I also couldn’t resist using the fun, bright green selvage in the front of the quilt. Cotton + Steel has the best selvages!
I also made Caroline a Waterfall Raglan (cutest shirt for her toddler’s belly!) and some Playtime Leggings (why haven’t I made these before? They are SO. QUICK.) for her birthday outfit. Here she is wearing her new outfit and posing with the Doll Basket. (I was really having a hard time finding good light for these pictures so I took them all over the place at our house. These photos of her are so cute but the lighting wasn’t great. I knew I’d never be able to get her to stand still again, though, so this is the best I could do.)
Thank you so much to Maker Mountain Fabrics for supplying the fabric for Caroline’s Doll Basket! I loved sewing with these beautiful fabrics. Grace has a great collection of quilting and garment fabrics in her shop– be sure to check it out!
~Teri
Fa Sew La 
So cute, what a great idea! The basket looks a great size and the mini quilt is gorgeous and so is your daughter.
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Thanks, Lynsey! It was fun to switch gears and do some sewing for Caroline. I think it would be fun to try to make at least one kid item each month instead of always sewing for myself!
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Such a lucky girl!! These are all so cute Teri!
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