Busy New Hobby

Now that these quilts have been opened by their intended recipients and parents -- I can show you what I spent so many hours working on. First of all, Camie gets the credit for turning me on to making these I Spy quilts. Totally her idea. Then, Rebecca S. gets the credit for motivating met to get them done because she amazingly cranked out like 4 of these before I finished my 2nd one. What's an I Spy quilt? It's basically just a quilt full of novelty fabric blocks that contain lots of different objects that you can play games with and use during quiet times or on car trips. I decided to try and make one for each of the 4 grandkids for Christmas (Ava's has not been done yet - have to get on that).

Here is the first quilt that I made for my 1 year old nephew, Ryan. (You should be able to click on the picture to make it bigger). It kind of has a "picnic" theme to it. Keep in mind that other than a wall-hanging - this is my first ever quilt. I learned quite a bit. Also keep in mind that I made the decision that I couldn't go for perfection - if I wanted to ever finish it anyway.

Here is the 2nd one I did for my neice, Kate. Her mom, Gaia, knew I was doing these quilts and came over and picked out some squares from my HUGE collection that I have aquired from ebay as well as LOTS of trips to local and not as local fabric shops. I think I bought 70 1/4 yards of various fabrics plus kits purchased from ebay.
And the last one I made was for my nephew, William. Gaia mentioned that William would probably want to put the quilt on his bed so I tried to make it a little bigger. I also skipped the sashing and did solid blue squares (thanks to Rebecca for the idea and sample). Because of a sewing machine malfunction I took a long break between quilts 2 and 3 and didn't finish William's quilt until 2 days before we left for our trip. But, it did get done! Now, I just need to make one for my own daughter.

Side note: I'm really starting to feel the pressure of this new baby coming (due March 26). I feel like there are so many things I want and need to get done before she comes! AHH! Baby steps, baby steps....