Awhile back, I won a set of 5″ i-spy squares from Alyce at Blossom Heart Quilts . Since then, I have gotten to know Alyce better, participated in her Sew Seasonal Blog Hop, and she is a pretty darn cool gal. Her son and daughter are about the same ages as mine, so she knows the crazy that is my life. She recently relocated to Japan for 3 years (and I thought relocating to Sonoma was far!) . That means she gets to scout out super-cool Japanese fabrics.
Here were the charm squares I won:
Liam went crazy when he saw them and asked for a quilt. I finally had some free time (if that is possible around Christmas) and I made a throw for him. I decided to make a patchwork quilt, since I had never done one before and I love the simplicity. I added in a grey print from my friend, Ramona, and Kona solids.
I really thought it would be fast and easy to whip up a simple, random, patchwork quilt, but then I realized that there is no such thing as random. I probably spent an hour or so laying out the squares just to get them to look “random” and not have any duplicate squares touching, or create odd patterns. It ended up being best to create a diagonal sequence with the solids and the grey prints.
The quilting is diagonal straight lines done with my Juki’s walking foot. I finished it off with an extra-wide 1.25″ binding.
I’m really happy with how it turned out and I love how the added grey keeps the bright colors from becoming over-powering. Hopefully Liam will enjoy sleeping under it!
So cute! I need to make something like this for my son he LOVES trucks of any sort.. this would be perfect for him.
Oh how sweet! That binding is adorable!
Love it! I agree that the solids make it stand out!
What a great quilt! I always love simplicity to showcase fabrics.
looks really good- I always think straight patchwork will be easy, and then like you say, you spend hours working out the layout, and then when you have to sew the strips together you still have loads of corners to match up, so it still takes time! i haven’t made an i-spy quilt yet, it’s on my very long to do list. I’m sure Liam will love it!! : )
Aw, thanks Janice!! I’m very glad the charms were well-loved!
SUPER cute! Love the colors, the layout and the binding!
If anyone is looking for transportation i spy squares, we are having a swap 5 inch squares at http://mysweetiepgarden.blogspot.com/2013/09/i-spy-transportation-swap-open.html