I Spy Quilt

I made my first and [probably] last quilt. It’s WAY harder than it looks.

Our close friends had a baby girl in August and named her Violet. I knew I wanted to make Violet something so I started scouring Pinterest for quilt ideas. I found this I Spy Quilt and knew that’s what I wanted to make.  Except, I don’t have a fancy quilting sewing machine – those puppies are expensive! But then I found this modern baby quilt and liked how it was sewed- straight lines, no fancy squiggly lines. It’s since sold, but there are a ton of other cute quilts at the Little Colley Design Etsy shop.

The fabric shopping was the fun part- (except waiting for 50 bolts of fabric to be cut). I brought them home and washed them all, and they ended up with a tangled knot. So.Many.Strings.

I straightened them all out and ironed them. Then I cut all the squares. Some of the fabric was more time intensive- like the planets and SpongeBob. I also made a list of all the fabrics I was using.

The white squares were a little more straight forward.

Then came sewing and ironing, followed by sewing and ironing, and more sewing and ironing. If I ever do another quilt I’m going to invest in this.

I’m not sure how my arrangement got all messed up, but I wasn’t discouraged yet, because I managed to keep all the images facing the same direction. (I’m sure that in 21 years Violet will enjoy beer as much as her parents do. 🙂 ) 

Then I measured and planned the borders and binding. I liked the double border, so I chose a pattern for the smaller border, a solid purple for the larger border, pink for the binding and a light purple minky fabric for the back.

The borders went on without a hitch.

The backing is where I went wrong. I don’t know why I thought sewing a square first was a good idea. I thought I had done such a good job safety pinning the three layers together…

I was so frustrated that it sat like this in Nolan’s office for a couple of weeks.
I eventually got up the motivation to  finish it and this weekend we gave it to Violet. Even with all the imperfections Violet still seems to like it.

Isn’t she cute!?