Improv I-spy Baby Quilt

Well, I just looked up and realized that after a summer full of lots of fun with a very active and mobile toddler Esther, and plenty of time crafting, I didn't manage to blog at all. Oops! Other bloggers, does that happen to you where you want to spend every spare minute squeezing in the actual crafts and so you don't make time to blog about it?

Now that it is really starting to feel like fall I am planning to get back in a regular habit of blogging. So I wanted to share this improv i-spy quilt that I recently finished for a friend's baby (after it sat on my design wall most of the summer - hopefully they still get some good use out of it even though he's probably crawling around more than laying on blankets now!)  I started out cutting different size i-spy squares and framing them with different widths of solid colors, making great use of jellyroll fabrics.  I originally had thought about making them into wonky stars but I decided to keep it simpler and have the i-spy squares scattered on an improv pieced background.  I used my design wall to lay it out and pulled together a bunch of different grey fabrics for the background.  It turned out a bit darker than I anticipated but I think it's a fun modern take on an i-spy quilt!

I did a quick free motion meander quilting on it, and made an effort to avoid falling into my normal trap of tiny quilting - I couldn't believe how fast it went with big meanders, it probably only took an hour to quilt!  It was good to get some more FMQ practice, I think I should be brave and try a non-meander design pretty soon.

I backed it with a perfect-sized australian animals fabric that I had in my stash and bound in a solid teal.  I accidentally trimmed too close to the orange block when I was squaring up the quilt - originally it was intended to be floating in the middle like the rest of the blocks - but I actually like how it turned out that that one block is against the binding.

I have been doing tons of sewing clothes for Esther (more on that soon), so I'm having a hard time focusing on my quilting projects... I always think I'll get back to them after I just sew her one more shirt, haha.  But I have another baby quilt half pieced and a bunch of similar i-spy squares started for another i-spy variation for us to keep, so I should really get back to it soon!

Purple and red improv quilt

I'm going to try to get over my compunction to have to "catch up" on everything chronologically before sharing anything more recent and share this quilt that I finished earlier this month.  I love how it turned out so I didn't want to wait to share!

I made this quilt for a dear friend who lives on the east coast and has been having some pretty serious health troubles over the past several years that have gotten worse lately.  I was feeling pretty helpless to do anything from afar, but she has been having to spend a lot of time resting and I figured a quilt to wrap herself up in couldn't hurt.  I feel like I almost always am making baby quilts, so it was actually really fun to make something for an adult and not worry that it was going to be too modern or not what the parents wanted.  I've been so inspired by the improv quilts that my online friends have made, especially Krista and Natalie, so it was a great chance to play around with the technique!

I was pretty sure that my friend's living room had some bright red and purple accents in it so that was the color scheme I started with.  The Anna Maria Horner Innocent Crush fabric (near the top left in the block above) was a great fit for both the color scheme and the feel that I was going for, and it inspired me to add pops of bright yellow/orange in each block.  I used a mixture of scraps and cutting up some of my stash fabrics, so there is really quite a variety of fabrics in the quilt which is fun.

I tried to keep the blocks interesting with some more detailed/smaller pieced parts and some larger pieces mixed in.  I forgot to measure the final quilt and I don't think I even wrote down the dimensions of each block, but I am pretty sure that they were about 12"x14" before I added the white (Kona snow) borders, which I think were 1.5" strips to finish at 1" after I pieced them.  I used everyone's new favorite neutral, yarn-dyed essex cotton/linen blend in black, which I just love the texture of and how it plays off the bright colors.  I quilted it with a random lines design which I think is a great match for the improv piecing - you can't really see it in the photos but I quilted using a lilac thread which was a fun complement to the color scheme.

I also made my first scrappy binding which was a fun way to play up the scrappy, improv nature of the blocks.  I machine sewed the binding as I have started to do more often, it just is so fast and its nice to know that it will be really durable (although I still love a hand-sewn binding too).  The backing is a thrifted crimson red sheet which you can see a peek of above.

I'm happy to say that my friend loves the quilt and it's nice to know that I'm helping take care of her in a small way even if I can't be there myself!