This year, Saint Nicholas (a.k.a. yours truly) brought a doll’s crib for my youngest. I’ll be straight with you: I had my eye on this stunning crib from the Danish brand Smallstuff. But no matter how much I value high ergonomic standards for dolly, spending €90 (almost $100) on a crib for a baby doll, seemed a little decadent.
Enter plan B: buying a vintage crib, and upcycling it. But when I couldn’t find what I was looking for online, I went for plan C. I bought a cheap (€23) mass produced crib, in stereotypical colors. (You should seriously type ‘Doll crib’ in Google Images, and watch your screen turn pink).
Anyways, here is what I did. I painted the bars, and replaced the ugly synthetic sheets with pretty ones.
I knitted a blanket in mustard Cotton Merino from Drops. It took me a while to find out how to knit holes. But in the end, it turned out to be very simple. I just alternated in rows between knit and purl, and wherever I wanted a hole (always in a knit row), I just put my yarn over (as if I wanted to purl) and knitted the next to stitches together. That was it!
I also sewed a few things which can serve as both mattresses and blankets.
I used some leftovers of Andrea Lauren, Free Spirit, April Rhodes and Ann Kelle fabrics from my stash. I just sewed two rectangles together with a piece of batting in between. The batting is from Quilter’s Dream. Our dolly is a bit spoiled I guess. I still have some super cheap batting from when I was a beginning seamstress. But once you start using quality batting, it’s very hard to use the cheap stuff again, even if it’s for a silly doll’s project.
Have a great weekend!
(Wrapping paper from Studio Lala; Panda poster from Florence and the Boys)