Friends of mine had a baby boy a few weeks ago and I found a great “need” to make him a little quilt. Seems that since I have found this new skill of mine I am anxious to spend lots of time quilting, though the faster projects seem to win out. I think I’m going to have to get good at writing progress posts, instead of only posting finished projects!

I also have a great desire to rid myself of my overflowing scrap bin – so, I landed on making an I Spy quilt with over-sized squares. It was really a lot of fun going through my stash and scraps to find the 6″ squares with the most fun boyish prints and kid-friendly designs. I even finally found a good place to use a small piece of my mustache fabric!

The whole thing was inspired by some multi-coloured Origami Sprouts yardage I recently ordered from Double Decker Fabrics and this quilt from Blueberry Patch. The Mixed Bag collection by Studio M for Moda is perfect for kids and works really well in a little boy’s project. I had 1/2 metre, so I used it for the top of the pieced backing. Thankfully I’ve got a little scrap left to stash for another project, it’s so cute! I also had the blue stripey fabric (some Dear Stella from a stashing trip last year). The pieced squares on the back made the other two larger pieces just long enough to fit the length of the quilt.

As I talked about quilts being slow earlier, that’s actually not the case with this one – even though it did take me a month from start to finish. I know this because of the internet (as usual) since I Insta-documented the beginning on August 15th. Sewing the little squares together and piecing the back doesn’t take long, especially on such a small quilt. Even the wonky “graph paper” straight line quilting (does that have a real name?) only took me a few hours. I likely could have finished the whole thing in 6-8 hours had I been able to find one sewing session that long!

I have to admit, that while I was arranging and piecing the front of the quilt I was a bit skeptical and didn’t figure I would like it. Even after straight line quilting it parallel to the long edge it still looked random to me. It was only after I quilted it in the other direction that I started to like it. I think the last lines of quilting brought the whole thing together. I have learned through this process that I like modern “random” quilts (like the amazing ones Cynthia Frenette makes). But I don’t as much like so many random prints and colours pieced together in such large blocks, because they don’t have any semblance of continuity. Even the colourful “scrappy” vibe is hard to find.

Thankfully, with the quilting in place this one has grown on me and I think it will be fun for the baby to lie on and look at – goodness, it’s got enough going on to keep his attention for at least a little while! Anyhow, if the parents hate the busy side, it’s got a lovely toned-down backing that could be used as the front instead.

In other news, some BIG happenings I have neglected to let you know about for tooo long… The results of the Crafting Con Avengers month competition were posted earlier this month and I get to be the proud first place winner! I was so excited when I heard the news and I get to find myself some new patterns from PeekABoo Pattern Shop and something from Fabricworm! Hooray! The kids are still carrying around those bags and there might be a plan to make the little round one into a proper sale-able pattern. (yippee…!) You can see my post about the competition here.

Reader Feedback: What is your favorite new baby sewing project? 

*This is not a sponsored post, though this blog is proud to say that Double Decker Fabric is a current sponsor. I wanted to share where I got the fabric from so you could find it if you need some. And… an unrelated note to self, iron the quilt before photographing it next time!