Sunday, August 31, 2014

Ikea Teddy Bed

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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.

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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.

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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.

20140831-P1370047 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?

20140831-P1370060 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.

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I think Rachel's cat looks very cosy here.

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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?

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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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1 comment:

Blue Moth said...

Unbelievably cute. #quiltenvy