My First iSpy!

A few months back, I discovered an awesome crafty blog called Obsessively Stitching. The woman who authors it has an amazing knack for whipping up neat, original projects from everyday items and scraps of fabric. One of these awesome projects is called an iSpy quilt.

An iSpy quilt takes scraps of novelty fabrics and puts them together into a fun iSpy game for kids. Plus, it looks so darn cool! A crib sized quilt takes 88 different 4" squares and while it is possible to collect all of them over time, you can also participate in iSpy fabric swaps which allow you to collect 200 different fabrics in a short amount of time and for little money.

Back in August, I participated in iSpy Swap #7 hosted by Obsessively Stitching. I got such a great starter stash! Colorful galoshes, crossword puzzles, butterflies, banjo playing bugs, school buses, Monopoly pieces, blueberries, letters, picnic ants, vintage cars, golf carts, turtles, cassette tapes, chocolate covered pretzels....the craziest array of prints I've ever seen!

No wonder this is addicting.

My first iSpy quilt was a gift for a friend's son and since its been received, I can finally post pictures of it. Excuse the bragging - this thing was my quilting pride and joy to date!

For this quilt, I used the disappearing nine patch pattern, which if you quilt and haven't tried - you must! It makes this pattern SO much easier to do than cutting out a bazillion sashing pieces and setting squares.

For this quilt, I used white sashing, red setting squares, and a bright green for the backing and binding. With so many colors and patterns on the front, you can't go wrong choosing colors for the rest.

And, drum roll please......I actually finished this quilt with binding!! I had this completely irrational fear of binding. It was crazy. I'd work on quilts for hours and hours and then turn and top stitch them. I know, I know - such a shame. Now that I've done it once, I have no idea what I've been afraid of.

I love this thing and I hope the little boy I gave it to does too. I absolutely love making baby/kid blankets and can't wait to make one for C. Right now I have plans for two - one regular iSpy and one made entirely of prints with black backgrounds (another inspiration from Obsessively Stitching).

Between this quilt project and the rest of my Christmas gifts and crafts, I've done a lot of this lately. Its been wonderful. :-) Cheers!