I SPY Quilts

I SPY Quilts

I have never seen an I SPY quilt before but this customer quilt is so incredibly cute that I may end up doing one myself.

This quilt (and there were actually two identical!)  had a lot to think about for the quilting so we went through the process of taking a photo, printing it and using tracing paper on top to audition designs and see what worked for this quilt.  

The planning stage looked like this:

Once the plan was approved,  I used Aurifil 50 weight cotton thread in primary colors of yellow, blue and red for the quilting  We started in the center with a very simple 1/4" echo to solidify the "I Spy" embroidery block.  The black stripe borders were skipped entirely as they were only about 1" wide.  The I spy blocks were for the most part quilted with an "X" cross hatch in yellow for simplicity and as to not detract from the prints.  

Now came the fun:  the green border was quilted with the numbers zero through ten (twice)  using the blue thread and quilting over them twice.  This was a lot of fun!   We went with a simple serpentine curved line in the cute red border to quiet things down,

 Next was another border of  I Spy blocks  but in the corner blocks of this border of prints was a surprise:

Each of the four blocks open with prairie points!

No quilting in these blocks but I stitched in the ditch around them and that lifted the prairie points just slightly so you knew they opened.  Absolutely love it!

From there we went with another simple serpentine cured line, followed by a series of "l" quilting in the yellow border.  Then came the real fun again:  stitching the entire alphabet (twice) in both capital and lower case in the green border.  This turned out so cute!!

The entire quilt was framed with a final ribbon candy border to finish it off.  I left about 1/2" empty from the quilt edge to allow for the binding so nothing would be hidden.

And that's the adorable I SPY Quilt. Hope you enjoyed the quilting process. 

 Have a safe and blessed Memorial Day Weekend.  Thank you for those who have given, and continue to give, their lives for the sake and freedom of the people of our wonderful United States of America.  

Check out the quilty sites on my sidebar and don't forget Finish it Up Friday over at Crazy Mom Quilts here:  http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com.  Thanks for stopping by!