Handmade Holidays- Charm Square Doll Quilt

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It is week 4 of my 12 Weeks of Handmade Holidays series, where I am sharing 2 projects a week that are gift ideas you can make for the holidays, or anytime you need a gift. The first project of the week is always a crochet pattern, and for that pattern this week I made a little baby doll. For today's project I decided to stick with the same kind of category I guess, and I made a Charm Square Doll Quilt.

I thought a doll quilt would be super quick and easy to make, a great project for using up scraps (I used a charm pack which made it really easy, but you could also cut squares out of scraps), and it makes a cute little gift. 

Like I said, I used a charm pack to make my quilt. The pack I used was a small one that had all yellow floral prints. I had gotten it a long time ago with a project in mind, then decided I didn't want to use it for that and it just ended up in my stash. It was only 24 charm squares so it wasn't a ton of fabric, so I had to find the right project to make with it. It was perfect for this project that only needed 12 charm squares, so I could have made 2 little doll quilts with it. It would also be great if you have charm squares left over from another project, as long as you have 12 you can make a little doll quilt. You will also need some backing and binding fabric, a fat quarter works great for that, as well as some batting. 

This doll quilt ends up about 14" wide and about 18.5" long, or 3 charm squares by 4 charm squares. I feel like it is a size that will work with baby dolls or even with an 18" doll. It worked up really fast and in addition to being a good little gift it would also make a good beginner sewing project. If you want an even simpler version I also have a fat quarter doll blanket that is made with just 2 fat quarters and some binding and batting.  

This is the 8th project in this series of handmade gift ideas, 4 crochet projects, 3 sewing projects, and a painting project. I hope you are enjoying these gift ideas. Be sure to check out the other projects shared so far in this series- the Solitude Scarf, Easy Fabric Corner Bookmarks, the Merry Hat, Fabric Lanyards, the Trinity Stitch Book Sleeves, Initial Trinket Dishes, and the Sleepy Baby Doll, with several more projects to come over the next few weeks leading up to Christmas. 

How to Make a Charm Square Doll Quilt

You will need:

• 12 charm squares (or cut 12- 5" squares)
• batting (piece at least 16"x 20")
• backing fabric (fat quarter or half yard cut)
• coordinating thread
• sewing machine
• scissors or rotary cutter, ruler, mat
• iron

Instructions:

Lay out the 12 squares in the pattern you would like. All 12 of my squares were different so it was just a completely scrappy layout. 

Sew your squares into 4 strips of 3 with a 1/4" seam allowance, press, and sew the 4 strips into the quilt top.

Press the pieced top.

Cut a piece of batting slightly larger than your quilt top, and a piece of backing that is at least an inch larger on every side of the quilt top (I like to leave it even a little larger than that so I can trim it to 1" around, this is mostly important if you use the backing for the binding as I did, if you use a separate binding you don't need as much extra).

Layer your pieces with the backing wrong side up, batting, then quilt right side up. Baste in preferred way (pins, basting spray, etc.). 

Quilt your doll quilt. I stitched with the edge of the presser foot along both sides of each seam for easy quilting. You could also do x's through the centers of the squares, or whatever pattern you would like. 

Trim the batting even with the edge of the quilt top. You can trim the backing as well and then add a binding, but to keep it simple I instead trimmed the backing to have 1" of fabric all the way around. 

To bind using the backing fold the raw edge in 1/2" to the edge of the quilt top, then fold over again so it comes over the edge of the quilt. Sew around the inside edge of the binding close to the edge, to sew it down and finish your quilt.