Well, I’ve quilted quilts and doing piecing for clothing but this was my first ever boat! This fun pattern for a Quilted Doll Dinghy and Life Jacket is a pattern from Modern-Textiles.com. It’s intended for an 18 inch doll, but my smaller Waldorf type doll is just as happy sailing off his blue towel stream! (Though he’s bit too close to the waterfall for my comfort)!!

I’ve had this pattern for several years and picked out the fabric for this dinghy a year ago. I kept thinking that this was going to be a challenging project. Not so, as it turns out! The hardest thing, which isn’t hard at all but takes quite a bit of time, is doing the 1/4 inch walking foot quilting on a layer of fabric and batting—not a three layer sandwich—to create the fabric for the boat’s exterior. Once the fabric had been quilted, the boat goes together quickly.

The life jacket called for fiber-fill stuffing, but real life jackets these days have a slim profiles, so I simple sewed one layer of cotton quilt batting on one half of the long strip of fabric used to make the life jacket.

Must be a breezy day…can’t image why else he’s wearing his woolly cap!

Modern Textiles has a number of patterns of their webpage. Some of them, like this pattern, were created when Modern Textiles was brick and mortar quilt shop in Fargo, North Dakota. These days it’s only on-line and located in Alexandria, Minnesota.

Their other pattern I’ve long been tempted to make is Ruby the Bear Rug, made with faux fur. That pattern is now a digital download. I think about making him every time I look at Modern Textile’s online shop, but no plans to do that at the moment!