Last Finished Quilt of 2011

I worked my butt off on the quilting and binding for this quilt and managed to finish it in time for Henry for Christmas. 

outside


This quilt is the last of four I Spy quilts.
It is the last quilt for the year and the last of my parade of handmades.

Henry square
(Henry's fishy square)


I started his I Spy quilt knowing two things, I wanted to use the Ann Kelle Remix Stripe somewhere in the quilt and that I was willing to cut into anything to get some interesting prints.

ann kelle remix stripe as binding


When I had finally pulled together the 135 prints for his quilt, it still took months and months before the full design came to me.  I'm not a fast designer.  Either the idea has come to me, or it hasn't arrived yet.  I try to be patient until the right plan comes to mind, but it isn't always easy.  The design for this quilt came over months of thinking about it.
One day, I just woke up and I knew I wanted to use more than color for the solid squares.  I thought that they would be random....

Then, weeks later, I decided to arrange the squares in a plus sign design.

 double quilted plus


Then, it took months before I figured out that I wanted the spy fabrics arranged by color
and in pluses also.

more hand quilting


The quilt squares took up the whole floor of my dining room for two weeks before I figured out that the pale background spy prints had to go at the bottom of the quilt and offset by the colored solids.

Even once the top was designed, it still took me ages and ages before I knew how to quilt it.  Eventually, I decided on a mix of machine and hand quilting.

transistion



all done



Here is the recipient inspecting the I Spy squares:

inspector

I think he likes it!


Thank you to Rachel, Audrey, and Sandi for helping me to collect fabrics!

And thank you to all readers and commenters on this blog.
It really does help me stay motivated to finish projects throughout the year.

Happy New Year to you!

12 comments:

Lucy | Charm About You said...

This is amazing!! Love all the colours. Great choices and what a gorgeous smile!!
Happy New Year!

Linda said...

What a happy little chap, all wrapped up in his quilt!

Anonymous said...

It's beautiful. I've had fun observing your design process and watching it progress. This is one of my favorite I Spy quilts because it's loaded with things to spy but it still incorporates some really creative design choices. Plus it's fun to "spy" fabrics that came from my stash!

Nic said...

I think that one can definitely go in the success column :)
That's one happy little boy there

melissa said...

oh it turned out so so wonderfully! all that work and all that planning really did come together!
and that last photo - with henry and his big smile show that it was all worth it!!

Kleep said...

That is wonderful, and I love love that binding!! And the pics with your little one of course :-)

Anonymous said...

Oh my goodness this is amazing! I love this quilt and LOVE how much he is enjoying it.
You are so inspiring!
-Lindsey

Prof. S (the enchanted bobbin) said...

Beautiful work -- and clearly it has captured little Henry's imagination! What a lucky little boy.

felicity said...

Awwww. Your quilt is obviously a huge success! It's wonderful - I adore the fabric placement you chose.

Angela Nash said...

All your hours and thought certainly paid off!! Henry obviously loves it - but it's also such a fun layout. The unexpected pluses and solids are awesome!

Linda Beth said...

Whatever time it took to come up with the design for this, it was time well spent! I certainly understand the process, and then when you finish with something as beautiful as this quilt is, you should know you approached it the right way. Lucky Henry!

Lettyb said...

This is so sweet. I just love it!

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