Rainbow Star "I Spy" Quilt

I machine pieced this quilt on my Bernina 240.
I quilted this quilt on my Janome QMP-18 long arm.


Finished size: 42" x 60"

(click on photos to enlarge)

✫FINISHED QUILT:✫

Front piecing: The center of this quilt top is made from 129 - 4" squares arranged in a 9x15 grid, with 6 wonky stars added. None of the 4" squares are duplicated or repeated in the quilt's center. I arranged the rainbow colors to appear to meld into neighboring colors.

Border #1: The first inner border is 2.5" wide strips of a basic white cotton with gold stars, the same material used to make the wonky stars.

Border #2: The second, outer border is 2.5" x 4" strips of colorful black+music note fabric alternating with strips of black novelty "I Spy" fabrics.

Backing: The back of this quilt is pieced. I had a couple large pieces of "carrot colored" wide cotton blender left from the backing of the Improv Crossroads Quilt I made last winter, and to that I added a diagonal pieced section that includes the recipient's name, as well as some of this favorite things.

Quilt Stitching, Pattern: The quilt is stitched with edge-to-edge "Circle Meander", which is a great stitch to compliment the quilt's many squares and straight lines.

Quilt Stitching, Thread: I used a neutral thread called "Bone" (So Fine 50 #452) for the front of the quilt, to blend in and not take away from the many colorful "I Spy" fabrics.

Quilt Stitching, Thread: I used a bold blue thread called "Out of the Blue" (So Fine 50 #433) for the back of the quilt, to stand out against the strong backing colors.

Label: With the recipient's name in 6" tall letters on the back, I simply embroidered my initials and the year directly onto the binding as an abbreviated label.

There are over 150 different objects on this quilt. I made some cardstock flashcards and included them with the quilt so its recipient can play "I Spy" with his family and friends, and have fun beginning to learn to read at the same time.

All packed up and ready to make the trip to its final home!

✫INSPIRATION:✫

This quilt was a project that many different people helped make happen - two separate  individuals donated fabric to me, then a couple gave a generous monetary donation to help me cover costs and some of my time. Finally, another person reached out to me to share a story of a young man who truly deserves to have his very own "I Spy" quilt - so I got to work. I'm blessed to have time, talents and tools to create quilts that I hope will bring happiness to someone else.

✫PROGRESS PHOTOS:✫

Construction-Front:

I first began to comb through my many scraps, fat quarters and yardage that I've purposely set aside just for "I Spy" quilts. A great deal of these fabrics were donated to me, and some are smaller pieces left over from previous projects I've completed. 

Then I started to cut 4" squares, and began to divide them into color groups. I wasn't completely certain, but I knew I wanted to create something that had a blending effect and included as many colors as possible.

I had quite a bit of leftover gold-stars-on-white fabric from the Christmas Wreath quilt I made last year, so I discovered I could use that to make great contrasting wonky stars that could be scattered throughout the colorful 4" squares. I started by adding stars to the two strongest colors, red and orange.

Then I began to arrange the squares on my design wall. This portion of making the quilt definitely took the longest, because my choices from the novelty fabrics were limited, and I had to do a lot of re-arranging to get the blended look I was happy with.

Once all the 4" squares were joined together, I added a 2.5" border of the gold-stars-on-white fabric. But the quilt still needed to be a bit bigger. So I pieced 2.5" x 4" strips of black+colorful music note fabric alternating with strips of black novelty "I Spy" fabrics along the sides, and 2.5" squares of the same along the top. This grew the quilt to the size I was looking for.

Construction-Back:

The back of this quilt is pieced. I had a couple large pieces of "carrot colored" wide cotton blender left from the backing of the Improv Crossroads Quilt I made last winter, but they weren't long enough for a complete back. So I made a 12" wide strip from 6" tall paper-pieced letters, as well as Chicago Bears, Paw Patrol and Hot Wheels fabric I bought with some of the donated funds (these are a few of the recipient's favorite things), and then inserted the strip on a diagonal between the two pieces of carrot blender to make it long enough.

Quilting:

Before I could complete the quilt sandwich and begin long arm stitching, I first took many of my larger unused batting pieces left from previous projects, and basted them together onto the quilt backing that had been loaded onto my long arm.

Then I was ready to float the top and laid out the stitch pattern in my ProStitcher software. I chose the perfect "Circle Meander" edge-to-edge.

First row being quilted...

...and the final of 7 rows total.

Trimming:

Due to its perfect size, this quilt was a dream to square up after I removed it from the long arm.

Label:

Before attaching the machine sewn binding to the quilt, I embroidered an abbreviated label of just my initials and the year onto the binding fabric using my Brother PE700 embroidery machine.

Binding:

To frame the quilt, I used 3.5" wide fabric strips from the bright and contrasting cotton print of colorful musical notes on a black background, manufactured by Hi-Fashion Fabrics, to make a wide binding (music therapy is one of the recipient's favorite activities). This fabric was also used as the backing for the Musical String quilt I made at the beginning of this year.

First attaching the binding strips to the back of the quilt...

...then wrapping the binding around to the quilt front.

Washing:

I machine washed the completed quilt with dye trapping sheets (I use either Color Catchers or Color Grabbers), to absorb fabric dyes. After washing, the quilt is scrunchy, soft, and ready to be cuddled and loved.

✫QUILT SUMMARY:✫

I machine pieced this quilt on my Bernina 240.
I quilted this quilt on my Janome QMP-18 long arm.

Finished size: 42" x 60"

Front piecing: A 9x15 grid of 4" novelty fabric squares, with 6 wonky stars and two borders.

Back: A pieced backing combining a cotton blender fabric with an inserted diagonal strip that includes paper pieced letters spelling the recipient's name.

Binding: The wide binding is machine sewn, using a bright cotton print of colorful musical notes on a black background, manufactured by Hi-Fashion Fabrics.

Quilting: Edge-to-edge Circle Meander pattern stitching. Front stitched with Superior Threads' "Bone" (So Fine 50 #452), and back stitched with "Out of the Blue" (So Fine 50 #433).

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