You may have noticed that I have a bit of a thing for vintage linens.

Especially when they feature incredible workmanship like this …

But aside from using beautiful pillow cases for their original function, I rarely come up with a good use for other vintage linens.

However, earlier this fall I came across some vintage hand towels at a garage sale and it occurred to me that they would be perfect for creating some custom bedding for my dollhouse project.

And at $1 each, they were a bargain.

I brought them home and gave them a good soak in OxyClean, and then I hung them on the line to dry in the sun.  That one on the top has some rust stains that didn’t come out, but otherwise they all cleaned up beautifully.

Before I got started on creating my miniature bedding, I had to deal with the bed itself.

I purchased this unfinished bed from The Modern Dollhouse.  It will go in the same room as the armoire that I shared back in October.

So I used the same technique to paint the bed; a base coat of Dixie Belle’s Secret Path, followed by two coats of Drop Cloth.  Then, after sanding to distress the edges and reveal some of the base color, I added more of the re.design with prima Vintage Labels II Middy transfers to the foot board.

I also added just a little section of the transfer to the headboard as well.

All that remained was to turn those pretty vintage linens into some form of miniature bedding.

At first I was going to just sew up some seams by hand, but then I decided maybe it’s time to learn a new skill.  I guess it’s not entirely a new skill, my mom did teach me to sew on a sewing machine when I was young.  She even helped me sew a wardrobe appropriate for an office job when I was in my early 20’s and didn’t have much money to spend on new clothes.

But I haven’t sewn on a machine in decades, and I also didn’t own one.  So I popped onto Amazon and picked out what looked like the most basic sewing machine they had.  I didn’t need anything fancy, I just want to sew a straight seam.

I had to watch a YouTube video to learn how to thread the machine.  Then I practically had to use a magnifying glass to thread the needle, but I eventually got it.  Now don’t ask me for a recommendation on this machine, I’ve only used it to sew a handful of straight lines so far.  I’ll definitely have to use it a bit more before giving an opinion.

After a bit of practice with some fabric scraps, I was ready to sew the duvet for my dollhouse bed.  Honestly, this was super basic.  I just cut out the section of the linen towel that I wanted on the bed, then cut another piece of the towel in the same size for the back.  I sewed three sides together with the right sides of the fabric facing each other, then turned it right side out.  I ran a quick iron over it to press the seams down a bit.

Then I stuffed it with a single layer of batting to make it look like a puffy duvet.

I cut the edge off a separate linen napkin to create the folded over edge of a sheet.

Rather than sew that, I just used hot glue to hold the raw ends in place after tucking them under my duvet.

I did sew up two sides of the little pillow case though, making it out of a folded over piece of scrap.  The pretty edging on the open end is the original edging from the linen towel.

I stuffed it with some batting cut up into small pieces.

I ran a bead of hot glue down both sides of the bed to keep the duvet folded down over the sides.

Not terrible for my first foray into miniature bedding, right?

I’d love to have a full sized version of that duvet on my own bed, wouldn’t that be gorgeous?

If I could do one thing over, I think I would go back and tea dye the linen.  The white is a little bright for my taste, especially next to the Dixie Belle Drop Cloth.  But that’s just one of those perfectionist-y details that matter to me and probably absolutely no one else.

With that, I think I have all the furniture I’m going to need for the ‘guest room’ of my dollhouse.  Next up I have an idea for a wall treatment in that room.  However, I’ve been holding off on bringing the dollhouse inside to work on it.  It’s going to take up a lot of space, and it’s not super portable.  For that reason I was thinking I’d wait until after the Christmas decorations are down before bringing it in the house.  But I’m itching to get started, so I may scrap that idea and just get going on it.  We’ll see.

In the meantime, how do you like my vintage linen duvet?  And do any of you have any sewing tips for me?  If so, I’m all ears!