My 4 year old son Matt and I love to play the game “I Spy With My Little Eye“. Remember playing as a little kid, who doesn’t? Anytime we stand in line waiting for anything, we play I Spy. It can keep him occupied for a good 15-20 minutes. I suggest you try it the next time you’re waiting in the grocery line. For details on the game, I Spy.
Well, that brings me to my next Make and Take. There are patchwork quilts called, “I Spy Quilts“. They are colorful and fun and can be a convenient game for kids to play anywhere with your quilt. You could make the quilt small for in the car fun or large for a picnic gathering. To play the game with the quilt, ask the child to find a fabric square with a certain item on it and they go looking. The quilt can be made up of 30-50 fabric squares that are of scenic things, like: flowers, animals, bugs, shapes.
I Spy With My Little Eye Quilt
I recently made an I Spy Quilt that goes a few steps further with matching squares and a playful backing.
I have collected lots of fabric, mostly T.V. character fabrics that my kids love (yes, we watch too much T.V.) and made big squares of them: 8 1/2 inch squares cut, (they will be 8 inches square after sewing with a 1/4 seam on all sides) large enough to stand on. Then I put two of the same squares in the quilt, so they can find the matching one. Then the kids can take the quilt anywhere or just in the play room to play “I Spy”. It can be a fun new game to play with friends. I have made boy fabric quilts and girl fabric quilts. This photo shows a large quilt with boy and girl squares for both of my kids to share.
The large quilt above is 7 x 10 squares and the small quilt below is 5 x 6 squares.
I also put a fun Backing on the quilt for reversible fun. For boys, I have bought Thomas the Train fabric that has tracks running all over. The kids can I Spy on the front and play trains on the back. For girls, you can buy a princess theme or Dora fabric that they can bring their dolls out and pretend. Now you have 2 games in one handy quilt.
Hopefully this will entertain your kids as much it has for mine. Happy Quilting!!
Thank you for sharing! I am fairly inexperienced with quilting and these small projects are perfect for me to accomplish. As a former librarian, the value of these learning tools is priceless and I plan to make several for the local library storytime.
This is a great idea,I’ve been trying to come up with something for my 3 year old niece and this is perfect.she and her mom will love this. Thanks
I am in love with this. I want to create a quilt with old baby clothes, too. I’m strained for time so i’m not checking myself, but do you have any posts for new quilters? I don’t have a sewing machine, so i’ll be doing everything by hand. Also, I have no idea what the terminology means…Double bias? I have no idea….Help! :)
I actually have seen the BYU fabric at Joanns in Orem-
I woul dlove to know about the BYU fabric too! How cool! I guess you’d have to go visit provo… it’s probably at Wal Mart there.
Where in the world did you get BYU material??
Mary Jo – You’re welcome. I’m so glad you shared your fun quilt. It looks great. The mini ones are so easy.
For this larger one, I just used my backing for the border, cutting the backing 2 inches longer than the top. Then once I tied the quilt together with the batting in the middle, I pulled the backing over to the front and folded it twice over, like a hem. Does this make sense? It’s one piece, not a separate binding piece like most quilts would have. Then you can hand stitch the binding, but I just pin it all around and sew it with my machine, again easy. The corners just get folded into a point and pinned, then sewn.
Some quilts I like to take my time and some I just want the easy way out. Happy Quilting!
Hi!
I love your quilts! I did a mini version based on your examples and just posted pictures on my blog today (with a link to your site). I’d like to try a bigger one like the ones on this page. How did you do the border? I used bias tape on the small one, but I noticed you used the backing from the quilts as the border here. Did you just fold over the edges? How did you do the stitching and the corners?
Any advice would be great. Thank you for the great work on your blog!
Mary Jo
hi marie,
sorry that you can’t ever beat me on guitar hero, but keep trying. just wanted to give You a shout out and tell you i’m on your blog checking you out. i haven’t totally figured your blog out and i assumed i’d find your products, so i’ll keep looking. do i go to just the stictching barn? andyway, i’ll figure it out. BTW, i hate LOST. supposedly they were going to answer 3 big questions. and i was left with about 15 more. let’s talk. maybe you can solve the mysteries for me.
ps. thanks for coming to the party last night. and gabe loves his monster. he was playing with it all night and went to bed with it.