Make a pretty dolly quilt...

4yo Rafaella loves dolls, bunnies, fluffy toys and pretty much anything she can cuddle. 

For her birthday I made my precious ringlet headed granddaughter a new dolly quilt, but when the idea first evolved I had no real plan, just that this would be a wonderful gift and it should be made in pretty pastel prints.

Just around that time Fiona from 2 Green Zebras asked if I'd like to design with some fabrics which would not be available in quilt shops until April, and after viewing the photos she sent, I was definitely sure they'd be perfect for Rafaella's dolly quilt!

The fabrics are called "Sarah Kay With Love" and are so pretty. The range of tiny florals, checks, spots and tonal prints are perfect for little girl clothes, doll's dresses, bags, and of course - a dolly quilt. 

I chose to make 2" hexagons the main feature for the quilt front, with the addition of tiny flower and bee stitcheries. Adding cotton lace across the top added to the sweetness. 

Today I'm sharing the pattern sheet of those little flower and bee stitcheries so that you can use them in a similar project, or perhaps something else you've got in mind. 

Use the link below to download the pattern sheet.

Blossom had an idea to use some of the fabric to make a doll's dress for Rafaella's 18" doll, and her seamstress skills certainly show in this cute little frock!

As you can see there's many pretty little prints in the Sarah Kay With Love fabrics. I really love the two Blossom chose for the dress!

If you'd like to see something really special, Blossom made the best 'reel' of the dress modelled with Rafaella's doll on Instagram. If you like to watch it just pop over HERE or search for her page, lucyandmay on IG.

These fabrics should be available from quilt shops around Australia this month. Just do a google search for "Sarah Kay With Love" fabric.

We've had five days of rain now and the garden is mostly happy, though some things don't really like being drenched for so long. There's still more rain ahead, and I am not complaining. Our town dam really needs the water and we'd thought 'another failed wet season' just a week or two ago, but here it is very late - but better late than never! 

Hubby is on three weeks holiday and already he's installing new internal doors, whilst I pull everything out of the pantry to reorganise the space. I have a whole kitchen in turmoil at the moment, and as you can imagine there's a lot of mess and wood shavings in each doorway...but these opportunities for him to get some big jobs done in the house are rare, so I'm not at all concerned about mess. We've both got a list of things to get done in the next few weeks and I have to say, it's wonderful to have him home all day and be working side by side to accomplish these tasks together. 

One extra task is to make use of the abundance of huge lemons from the tree. This morning after breakfast I made a lemon meringue pie. I got 3/4 cup of lemon juice from just one lemon.

It will be lovely to enjoy the pie for desserts over the next few days, but I'll need to come up with more lemon recipes, probably to freeze...like lemon drizzle cake. I could make lemon butter/curd...well, I'm sure ideas will come as I'm busy with other things.

Do you find that? You can wrack your brains over a problem and when you put it aside and work on something else, an idea forms with no effort at all. 

Okay, I'd best sign off as I can hear hubby vacuuming the floors around the door mess, which means it's time for a cuppa and the last bits of that apple gingerbread I made a few days ago. Nothing quite like a warm cup of tea and some pudding on a rainy autumn afternoon.

Bless you heaps!