Quilty Pleasures Wednesday: Another Finish-I Spy Quilt

This will be a quickie since you've already seen this quilt top a while back and who wants to see the same stuff over and over again? (I'll tell you a secret: I do! I have many quilts bookmarked so I can gaze upon them over and over again.)

This is an I Spy quilt, a collection of novelty fabrics, each square different and chosen so a baby/toddler and his older siblings can have a conversation that goes like this: "Where's the violin?" "Is the duck taking a shower or a bath?" What squares are blue?" You know, important and heady back-and-forth repartee designed to someday save the world. (And who knows? That verbal ability we are encouraging with this quilt might do just that.)

I just had to use this shot because the sky was pretty and those purple flowers needed their moment.

It was hard deciding on a binding fabric because there were so many colors here, so I squinted my eyes at the whole quilt and saw more blue and red than anything else. It doesn't match the back, but let's not think about that right now.

The binding was fussy cut from this fabric. I wanted the checkerboard but not the stars.

I've been machine quilting small quilts and this was the third one so far. It's ironic that I like straight line quilting after purchasing the Bernina machine with the stitch regulator, but there will be time for more loop the loops in the future.

I found a quilting pattern called Big Diamond, Little Diamond, using blue painters' tape for the first diagonal lines. After that, I discovered the stitch guiding tool in the box holding the walking foot. Shazaam! That thing works!

I watched three Hell's Kitchen episodes while quilting, which is not therapeutic.  Too much yelling and drama. And I can't stand Elise. She would have been out of my classroom in a New York minute with that attitude. Talent or not, there's no room in this world for jerks!

I machine stitched the binding on this quilt, too. It's become my modus operandi, but if a quilt is going to be washed a lot, it makes sense. That's lavender in the background and the bees are loving it.

I hope Mikey likes this quilt and ends up taking it to college.