I Spy Quilt

Last week I had dinner with college friends and saw a picture of a baby gift called an 'I Spy' quilt. I had never heard of one, but the number of search results I found online made me wonder why I hadn't. For those of you who don't know, the quilts take their name from the children's guessing game, 'I Spy With My Little Eye'. The quilt fabric is chosen for the pictures that children will be able to find when asked. I decided to make one for my 18-month-old grandson and went through my fabric stash to find suitable fabric. I needed 80 different pictures, so I added some finds from ebay, JoAnn's, and Walmart to what I already had.

I decided to make a four patch quilt where the 4 inch fabric squares are arranged in groups of 4. I spent an inordinate amount of time arranging and rearranging the pieces until I was mostly satisfied with the color and object placement.

To make the squares pop I used yellow sashing and machine pieced the top. I had a new light blue fleece blanket from Ikea that I wanted to use as backing. I wondered if others had had success using fleece and omitting the batting and found lots of discussions about the pros and cons of this combination. The biggest con seemed to be the stretch of the fleece, but I decided to take a chance. After all, I wasn't creating a masterpiece; I just wanted a cuddly blanket that would be fun to play with.

I attached the top to the back by putting right sides together and sewing around three and a half sides, leaving about a 9-inch opening to turn it right side out. I then machine quilted it by stitching in the ditch and was pleased to only experience minor puckering on the back.

I added the phrase "I SPY" in the center row and his name and date in the lower corner.

I hope he has fun spying!