Dress Designer Quilt

Second Born's Quilt Top, with her name blurred.

my eight year old daughter, my sweet Second Born, has always had a flair for fashion.  she’s always come up with her very own outfits, ever since she was big enough to open up her own clothing drawers.  she also loves to draw, and lately, she’s been having fun making up and drawing out her very own dress designs.  i knew i wanted to make her a quilt for christmas… a smaller ‘snuggle up with a book or with the tv’ type quilt (not a bed sized quilt, like her Purple Rainbows quilt)… and then i had an idea….. to use her own dress designs as templates to make her designs come to life in a quilt!

i had hubby enlarge the designs to better fill up an 8 x 11 sheet.  he enlarged the middle block to fit onto 4 sheets of paper.  then i traced those templates on to my trusty Steam a Seam 2, and had alot of fun picking out fabrics and trim for the dresses.  once i ironed down the basic shapes, i sewed around each just for good measure.  then came the buttons and other details.  i tried my best to stay as true to her designs as possible.

Sun dress. i added the flower buttons, even though they aren't in the original design.. if my daughter knew i had them, she would certainly use them!

second born called this one her "princess of canada" dress.

second born called this one her "emerald dress"

i used freezer paper to trace the embroidery designs, and then used green embroidery thread, so that all the swirls on the dress are exactly the way she drew it herself (it took me  3 days of nap times to stitch them!).  once the embroidery was done, i carefully tore off the freezer paper.  i had to modify the design in just a few tiny places, to make it fit better, but for the most part, every swirl she drew is there!

embroidery, using freezer paper

i used fat quarters of Dress Up by Fabrice de Villeneuve to help fill in some of the spaces in between the blocks, and then added another border.  i used Steam a Seam again to iron down my Second Born’s signature, including the little heart that she always puts over her “i”, <3   but i’ve blurred that part out, sorry!  bad lighting today.. it’s all snowy and dark outside, and inside isn’t much brighter!

Finished Quilt

i can’t wait for Second Born to get this quilt.  i think she is going to squeal!

Advertisement