My grandchildren aren’t quite old enough to play I Spy just yet, but it won’t be long. Games are a great way to build vocabulary and language skills in young children and what better way to have a built-in game than an I Spy quilt?
I have been saving fabric for a long time to make an I Spy quilt because I wanted to have really fun fabrics with things that would interest children. Sports. Animals. Food. Bright colors. But here’s the problem. . . you save up all the fabrics and then you use ONE piece of each one. So. . . lots of leftovers. And I am NOT a leftover kind of girl.
Once I was cutting, I couldn’t stop. So I decided to save some of you the time and hassle of collecting and cutting the fabrics and I made up some
I Spy Quilt Kits!
These quilt kits include:
56 Hand Cut Tumblers
1.5″ Border
4.5″ Border
Full Color Instruction Booklet
$55.95
The kit does NOT include the backing or the binding.
Just so you know, I did starch all the fabrics for the tumblers before cutting them. Since tumblers have bias edges, I felt that the quilt would go together more easily if those pieces were starched. And let me tell you- I was right. This quilt top went together in just a couple of hours and was fun. I know that starch is a concern for some of you in the South, so I wanted to make sure that you know.
I literally had fabric on my cutting board to make the strips for the bindings when I realized that I like to use the binding to pull the front and back of the quilt together. . . and I didn’t want to make that decision for everyone else. I almost always put Shannon Cuddle fabric on the back of my quilts, but I was inspired by a post in a FaceBook group where the maker put an educational panel on the back of her quilt. What a great idea! I found this map panel at JoAnn and thought it was great, especially since it was on sale for under $7.00.
If you want to use a panel on the back of your quilt, you may need to add some borders to make it work. This panel needed borders on two sides, but ended up getting clipped off. (Sorry, Australia!) If you are going to have your quilt longarmed, make sure you add extra inches so your longarmer has room to attach it to the frame.
Sew, my friends- If you need a quick and easy project, you might just want to buy one of these kits. I think you will enjoy the process AND the final product.