Our church has a small group of women who meet once a month to work on various quilting projects. When we are blessed to welcome a new baby into our church family, a baby quilt becomes the project-at-hand.
For our most recent arrival, I suggested we make an “I Spy” quilt.
About twenty years ago, I came across the quilting book, “P.S. I Love You, Two!” , that contained the pattern that began the popular and recognizable “I Spy” quilt trend. The authors’ idea was to create a quilt that was not only functional, but FUN, as well, so that children could use the quilt for the game of “I Spy.”
I began collecting novelty fabrics as soon as I found this pattern. It wasn’t long until I had a sampling of everything that was available at my local fabric store…and sadly, we didn’t have any other quilt stores locally. Happily, it was the early days of the internet, and I was pleasantly surprised to find many fabric stores online, (even though it was painfully slow to load the fabric-swatch pages with our dial-up service.) Over the next few years, as my budget allowed, I built up a very nice stash of novelty fabrics, most of which are no longer available.
Thankfully, new novelty prints are continually being produced, so I should always have fresh designs to add to my ever-changing stash.
The original quilt called for 200 hexagons, “fussy-cut” from various novelty fabrics.
“Fussy-cutting” means that a plastic template is placed on the fabric, with the desired image centered within the shape; the template is traced around, then cut out.
It is a time-consuming process, but the results are so-o-o worth the effort…
For a time, I was disciplined about marking, cutting out, and organizing my hexagons as I purchased fabric. Eventually I got behind. So, now I have a large bin filled with “possibilities,” as I like to think of it. It will wait for me, and as long as friends and family members continue having babies, I’ll continue making these fun and functional fabric hugs.
Do you have a favorite sewn baby gift that you always give? Let me know in the comments!
Thanks for stopping by the Hollow!
Kristine Zerby
hiddenhollowblog 