Easy, Pretty, Vintage-Look Doll Quilt

This little quilt was a lot of fun. I'd been given some small pieces of 30's inspired fabric at about the same time my daughter fell in love with American Girl dolls. Once she "adopted" Samantha, of course we needed a doll quilt for her!

   The quilt is based on 2 blocks, each miniaturized to 3" finished. The first block is a scrappy 9-patch. Small scraps of fabric were cut into 1 1/2" strips and sewn together in sets of 3. Sometimes there was very little fabric for the third strip, but that was OK with me...it just added to the "scrappiness!"
   The sewn-together strips were rotary cut into 1 1/2" strips. Then, these 3-piece strips were arranged in groups of 3, and sewn together. Because they were so small, I finger pressed the seams to make them all nestle together when being sewn together.
   The  second block is a Broken Dishes block done in only 2 alternating fabrics: yellow and blue. By laying them out in the same orientation in their rows, an overall star pattern emerges. The blue fabric is always on the right and left sides, and the yellow fabric is always on the top and bottom.
   A pretty floral fabric that appears in some of the 9-patch blocks is used for the border: the border strips were cut at 2". To help with the vintage feel of the doll quilt, it was bound in pink and white gingham. Quilting was a simple diagonal grid across the 3" blocks...the border wasn't quilted. The overall quilt measures about 18 1/2" x 24" and has kept many a doll and stuffed animal cozy and warm on cold winter nights!