One of the most enjoyable times of the day spent with dolly is the time when you can undress and put her to bed, just as mother does baby.

And how much nicer, too, if you can feel that you have made all the bedclothes yourself. You may perhaps think that you could never manage that, but just look at these pretty little pictures of the things and see how simple they all are. I am sure then that you will want to try and copy them for your own dear dolly.

Before starting to make the outfit for the doll’s bed, get your materials together. Perhaps someone gave you a bedstead on your last birthday? If not, buy one the right size for your favourite doll. The one in the picture is a metal one with a wire mattress.

For the mattress, try to get a material something like that generally used for mattresses, but not so thick; a striped print would do quite nicely. The mattress illustrated and the pillows are made of grey, and white striped material, bound with red ribbon.

The cover for the wire mattress is made of white calico, the blankets of cream flannel, the sheets and pillow-cases of white linen; the bedspread and nightdress case of canvas worked with “Brighteye” thread.

Cut out two pieces of material a little larger than the bedstead, and another long narrow piece the depth of the mattress. Sew one side of the narrow piece around the sides of one of the large pieces (running stitch will do quite well for this part of the work), leaving the edges of the seam on the outside. Then join the other side of the narrow strip to three of the sides of the other piece you have cut, leaving one side open to put the filling in. This mattress is filled with horse-hair; but cotton wool, small pieces of rag, or paper could be used instead.

When the mattress is filled, sew up the fourth side and bind all the seams with narrow ribbon. Red ribbon is used on the mattress illustrated, and a little specimen is illustrated, showing how to put it on. The ribbon is held over the seam edges with the left hand and back-stitched along, taking your stitches right through the seam edges and both edges of the ribbon each time.

Now you will need to stab the mattress in places, as in the picture, to make it look just like the one on your own bed.

Take a long needle threaded with coarse thread the same colour as the binding, put the needle through the mattress, leaving a long end, make two more stitches through the mattress in the same place, pulling the thread tightly, finish at the same side as you began, tie a knot with the thread used and the long end left at the beginning and cut the threads, leaving small ends of threads beyond the knot.

Look at the illustration to see the positions in which you must put these stitches and knots.

Cut the material a little larger than the wire mattress to allow for a quarter-inch hem; hem the piece around, and sew two narrow pieces of tape (or coarse thread will do) at each corner of the cover: the cover is tied to the wire mattress with these pieces of tape.

Cut the flannel out large enough to cover the top and sides of mattress and allow for tucking up.

Turn down about a quarter of an inch single turning at each end of the blanket on the wrong side, then work in blanket stitch across both ends. You will see that a little specimen of work is illustrated, showing how to make this stitch. It is worked from left to right. The turned-in edge of your blanket must be held along the first finger of your left hand, and the needle placed in your work downwards towards you, the thread always being held under your thumb as you make a stitch, so that when you pull your needle you have a knot right at the edge of the work.

These should be cut a little longer than the blankets to allow for the wide hems, and for turning back at the top. The very narrowest of hems should be put at each side of the sheets, and one about half an inch wide along the bottom of each; but the top hems are about three-quarters of an inch wide, and are worked in ladder hem-stitching. All about how to do hem-stitching will be found on page 30.

• No. 1 shows Blanket Stitch.
• No. 2 shows Outline Stitch.
• No. 3 shows Whipping Stitch.
• No. 4 shows the Stitch for Binding the Mattress.

At the corner of the top sheet the initial B is worked. Of course, you must work the first letter of your doll’s name. If you are not sure you can write the initial on linen yourself, get someone to do it for you; then work it over in a fancy outline stitch with embroidery thread. You have a little specimen of work showing how the outline stitch was made for the B. In working this you hold your thread down along the design of your initial with your left hand, and take a small stitch over the thread, putting your needle in just above the thread and bringing it out just underneath; this makes a little knotted stitch, and the knots are repeated along the design at equal distances apart. You can use this outline stitch for many purposes.

Make the pillows of the same material as you used for the mattress. These will need to be each about three inches wide, and a little longer than half the width of the bed. For each pillow cut two pieces of material exactly the same size. Run the two pieces together round three of the edges on the wrong side, then turn on to the right side, stuff the pillows with wool or small pieces of rag, and oversew the edges of the fourth side together.

Make the pillow-cases in the same way as the pillows but a little larger, and hem round one end so that you can slip the pillow in. Sew two pieces of very narrow tape to each side of the open end, and tie the pillow into the case.

One of the pillow-cases has a frill round. To make this, cut out a narrow piece of linen, hem one side of it, and work a simple crochet edge on to this. Or you can use Cash’s Frillings for this, which are made to draw up easily into frills.

When the frill is ready to sew on, roll the edge of the other side of frill between your finger and thumb and sew over the roll, as shown in the little illustration. Use a coarser thread for this, working from right to left, pulling the thread to gather the frill as you are working it. This is called whipping, and is really very much the same as oversewing, only the stitches are taken right over the hem. Cash’s Frilling needs no whipping.

Oversew the frill around the edge of the pillow-case.

Cut out a piece of canvas large enough to cover the bed, and hang over the mattress, allowing extra around for the hem.

Hemstitch around, taking two sets of threads together; for the second side of the hemstitch sew together two sets of threads, but take up alternate threads to those taken up on the other side; this serpentine stitch is shown on page 30.

The pattern of the bedspread is shown on page 61.

Each slanting stitch is worked over two holes—that is, pull the needle through a hole, leave two holes on the cross, put the needle into the next hole, leave two holes on the cross in the opposite direction, pull the needle up through the next hole, put the needle back into the same hole as the end of first stitch, and up again through the hole at the beginning of the second stitch.

Continue to work in this way all round the piece of canvas.

Work three more rows like this, arranged so that the stitches form a diamond pattern as you see illustrated.

Then fill in the corners with the same pattern, and work the pattern in the centre of dolly’s bedspread.

The nightdress case is made with the same materials as the bedspread.

Cut out a piece of canvas two and a half inches wide and four and a half inches long; fold this so that it makes a bag with a flap over it the same size as the bag. Put the two ends of the canvas for bag together, and work in blanket stitch round through both pieces at once, also around the edges of the flap to finish off the little case.

Work three diamonds on the front of the nightdress case. This completes the outfit for dolly’s bed, and I am sure she will like it.