This was my son's sweet little Jenny Lind bed he used from age 2.5 to 8. It was an antique Craigslist find that I refinished the stain myself. We didn't actually know it was a specialty size, and had to have a mattress custom made at a foam store. (It is in between a crib and twin size). He had 2 quilts handmade for him when I was expecting and they were treasured gifts. This one below was made by my Aunt Judy.
He'd been asking for awhile for a bunk bed, or bigger bed, so we decided to surprise him with one for his birthday. But that meant that he would also need a new quilt as the other ones were more crib sized.
This winter break we had gone to Utah and the airbnb we stayed at happened to be owned by the quilt stop owner that was under the airbnb apartment. This woman had furnished the bedrooms with all kinds of national park and nature-type quilts and pillows and I just loved it. His bedroom has always been kind of an outdoorsy theme so it was perfect. In her quilt shop she sold quilts, but she also sold the National Park insert sheet, so I just purchased that and kept it in my fabric tote for the future.
October came, with his birthday at the end of it and the plan to get the bigger bed, and I had to get to work!
That top piece with the National Park pictures was what I had purchased from the quilt shop. And it's laying on the batting in the middle, and at the bottom is a big piece of fabric for the backing. A lot of times I just use an old flat sheet for the back, but I wanted something with a pattern, and this year I learned that JoAnns sells a fabric 108" wide, so I wouldn't have to piece it together.
The forest green backing.
I got this blue fabric for the sides, but then decided to add a bit more color blocking. So back to JoAnns!
I got some orange fabric and started measuring and cutting to make a border.
Honestly, I kind of wish I did a yellow instead of the orange. But the yellow at JoAnns had tiny flowers on it, I thought he wouldn't like. I was enjoying texting my Aunt Judy with my quilt's progress and troubleshooting along the way, and she assured me she liked the orange :) and after it's sewn in, it's really too late anyway!
Hours of sewing.
That big insert piece saved hours though, and I did a lot of long strips, so that made it go a lot faster than a traditional pieced quilt. And when I did the quilting, I just did alternating National Park squares, I didn't do every single one.
The binding is always my least favorite part. But it went pretty well actually. I used a zigzag stitch and didn't seem to miss any of the layers. Although somehow I always mis-measure, and it was back to JoAnns for one more package of bias tape!
Finished!
This surprisingly also took awhile to hand-stitch.
The new loft bed!
Twin-sized still seemed pretty big. A lot of the National Park squares actually are just tucked in. Maybe on a non-loft bed it would just hang off the sides.
Anyway, he loved his new bed. And when I told him that I made the quilt he was very sweet and seemed to really appreciate it. He especially loved seeing his name on it and from mama <3
He was more interested in whatever he was building at the moment than being surprised by his new bed, lol. But he loves it!
