Ikea Teddy Bed

So I bought the Ikea Doll Bed. I had been thinking about it for some time. I thought that the pillow, mattress and blanket which come with it were pretty basic though. The pillow isn't even a pillow. It just wasn't cutting it. So I set about improving it. First I stained the pieces of wood with dark oak wood stain 3 times. Then I varnished them with matt varnish twice. All before construction. Then I set about making some new bedding with the stash of cheap fabric I bought from Birmingham at Fabrics Galore.


Firstly a new mattress
I just cut two layers of scrap wadding and covered it with grey stripe on one side and the grey dots on the other. It's not like a teddy is going to complain about it being hard. I bound it with some neon yellow ribbon I had so it matched the neon yellow thread I used to glam it up a bit. The Paul Smith grey stripe material worked really well but snapped my needle as the fabric was so fine.


Here is the other side. Simply flip it over and you have a new bed!

Secondly, a pillow
The pillow form itself I made using the white percale offcuts from Empress Mills which I got for £3.50. It's lovely soft fabric, a really great bargain. Now I want to go back and buy a whole load of it. The only purchase other than the bed that I had to make was the hollow fibre to fill the pillow form which was only £1.85 from my local craft shop. Then I made a matching removable pillowcase which I am pleased about.

Thirdly, a duvet
What can I say? I had all the stuffing and plenty of the percale left so I just went for it and even sewed it into sections like a proper duvet. Then I made a matching duvet cover. It's a little baggy but aren't they all?

Fourthly, a quilt!
I managed to finally finish off the jacob's coat quilt. I took it away on holiday and just went for it. It was really enjoyable. It used 100 petal shapes so I really needed two sets of Kim's precut petal shapes which I spoke about here. It was really nice to have such a variety of patterns. It made it look really antique. I had to make up the second lot myself which is a bit of a shame as it means there are some repeats in there, but I had all of mums dressmaking scraps and my own considerable stash.


I think Rachel's cat looks very cosy here.


I backed it with my precious fat quarter of Betsy fabric which I thought I was never going to use. So I am happy with myself for not hoarding fabric. It's really time to let go. I hate that I hang on to fabric, not wanting to use it as it's too nice. How silly is that?


If you look closely you can see that it's not very neat, but it does look very homemade. I didn't use a quilting frame and I did a lot of it in subdued lighting so it's not very crisp. You can also see how I quilted inbetween the shapes. It didn't take very long. And also I changed my original pattern by doing some blocks 1 1/2" and some 3 1/2, just to make it seem a bit more higgldypiggldy. It's all finished off with my cheap £1.65 bias binding. Done. I just wanted it to look old and a bit careworn which I think it does. Here is one last flat on view of the whole thing.

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