Andrew's I-Spy Quilt

A long time ago, when I only had Andrew, I started collecting novelty fabrics to make him an I-spy quilt. I decided to use mostly blues, browns and creams for something that would be fun but soothing for bed time. Then, I got pregnant with Aaron. And all my friends decided to have babies withing 6 months of me. So the baby quilts began to roll off my sewing machine. Then last winter, I started fussy cutting fabric to the same size as a pack of 6 inch pre-cut squares I had bought. I realized that my pre-cut fabric was not washed, so I soaked and dried them all in the sink, with the help of a very excited Andrew. And then something terrible happened. They shrank and warped. So I had about 25 fussy cut 6" squares, and about 40 pre-cut, needing to be re-cut 5 3/4" squares, and about 100 more squares to cut after that. So I put the quilt in a "to be continued"drawer, and started work on the two Peas and Carrots quilts.

The whole time I was working on these quilts, and the other odd baby and mini quilts I did in between, Andrew kept asking, "When are you going to work on MY quilt?" When I pulled out all my monkey flannel and started piecing it together into a quilt for cousin Seth, Andrew had a complete breakdown. Being Andrew, he started sabotaging my sewing time -- fighting with Aaron, pulling apart my sewing machine, emptying all the fabric bins and strewing fabric all over the basement . . . until I finally promised him that his quilt would be the next quilt I finished, if he would just STOP. Well, suddenly he became Mr. Co-operative, and I got Bea's quilt done, and started re-cutting all his squares into 5 1/2 inch squares.

While I was in the middle of this, Andrew got into my bin of polka dots and declared that he wanted red dots in his quilt. Oh, and these blue ones. And those black ones . . . so I had a new design challenge. How to fit red and blue and black polka dots in with my former plan.

This quilt was finished pretty quickly, because my niece's wedding is coming up, and I have a picnic quilt to make for a friend, and the weather is getting nice which means less sewing time . . . so here's what I came up with.



It is not really well balanced. Every time I tried to edit it a little, my patron would insist, "No, I NEED the chickens, mom. The giraffes have to stay, mom. Where are the race cars gone?" And I don't have a design wall, and Aaron kept waking up while I was trying to work out the layout . . . but its cute and has EVERYTHING in it, just as a certain little boy wanted.

The back is the same -- I was going to just add one more fabric aside from the rockets, but we had to have the race cars and knights and race cars and trains and trucks . . .

I do, however, have one VERY happy little boy, so it is all good.