Finn's I-Spy Quilt

Before I show you the quilt I have to share my latest purchases. We went to Windsor yesterday to pick up my repaired camera at Henry's and after a Chinese lunch we stopped at Michael's for a look-see. Wow. I had to really use some self restraint. They had all the punches and rubber stamps on for 40% off...and lots of other things on sale too. I was drooling over some of the punches but I decided not to get any...that's right, not one punch. I have about 5 punches and I don't have very many Spellbinder or Sizzix dies so used my 40% off coupon to get a Sizzix die. They don't always have a 40% off coupon when we decide to go there but chances are some scrapbooking supplies would be on sale. I also picked up some more dew drops that were also on sale. After all, the Paper Pickle is having a big sale this week and I thought I should save some of my crafting budget (which is very flexible I might add!!!) to buy locally. Sure enough, picked up some goodies there too so all in all, a great start to the week.

Now on to the quilt. I like to make I-Spy quilts for the grandchildren and even some great-nieces and nephews. My way of doing these are a bit different - of course. The idea behind this type of quilt is to put a wide variety of fabrics with pictures on them on a quilt and then the child has to find a picture of what ever you say. Some I-Spy quilt patterns are very precise and each picture is the same size and is framed with plain fabric. Boring!....and way too easy for the child. What I do is fussy-cut (which is quilting term meaning to cut around an area of the fabric to get only the portion you want) around the pictures using either a 2-1/2", 4-1/2" or 6-1/2" square for all the ones I can and then for some that don't fit those sizes, I just cut them out best I can. I sew these together to make a 12-1/2" block. Sew the 12-1/2" blocks together and voila, an I-Spy quilt is created.  My daughter said she also wanted a "tag quilt" for Finn as he loves to rub his fingers on various material so I just added folded bits of ribbon in various colours all thru the quilt and along the edges so he has both an I-Spy quilt and a tag quilt.  Here it is: Double click on any of the pictures to enlarge them.

As you can see, this quilt has a little bit of everything on it. Little things a child needs to learn to identify. Some of fabric, like the praying mantis, is actually appliqued onto another piece of fabric because it was the only way to make it fit...what ever works!