A Redwork Doll Blanket

       I made this doll blanket, by hand, for a child who loves turtles and all sorts of little forest creatures. The redwork designs come from a wonderful coloring book by Diane Gaspas called “Forest Animals.” Dover publishes many coloring books for children that may be used for a wide variety of personal projects/gifts. However, because these coloring pages are copyrighted and are not in the public domain, they should never be used for profit or be misrepresented as belonging to another company or individual other than Dover or Diane Gaspas. I specifically chose these designs by Dover because the company was sponsoring a craft contest in 2012 based upon the development of handmade crafts/personal art projects using their products. 

You can see here that I traced the design in pencil and then stretched the muslin between a wooden hoop

 before working the threads into the design.

I decided to introduce just a bit of applique into the turtle’s shell.

Here I have worked a few red seed beads into the wild fruits hanging above my turtle’s head.

I trimmed the doll blanket in a red rick-rack. I thought it would add to the old-fashioned look of the blanket.

 I also rotated my muslin squares with plaid and printed squares. These had no red touches originally so

 I stitched some red threads into the plaid designs in order to blend my bold red colors with the neutral

creams, tans, and whites of my overall color palette.

This sweet little mouse may also be found in the pages of the same coloring book along with the bees,

 moth and snail that are stitched into the redwork designs.

Above is the final project ready for someone very special that I have in mind.