Eye Spy Baby Quilt

My very best friends Richard and Lisa are imminently expecting their first child, a baby girl!  To celebrate her birth I made her an "eye-spy" quilt.

 The quilt goes perfect in her new bedroom!

These are really fun because not only are they beautiful and whimsical, they're educational too!  You can play the eye-spy game, practice matching and counting, learn about colors and animals, and tell stories about the pictures.  This is the kind of keepsake that someone keeps forever, and I was so happy to get to make it for her!

I chose celery green to match her new bedroom.  The coordinating border with birds and flowers reminded me of her parents, and everything else just sort of came together around it. 

Quilts aren't as challenging as they might seem at first - they're really just sewing a bunch of straight lines.  Baby quilts are a great size to start with because they come together quickly. 

I would call a quilt like this one "intermediate" because the hexagons are a little more challenging than squares.  All told, it took about 20 hours start to finish to make this quilt.

I made the mistake of cutting the border on the bias (not square to the fabric, but the fabric looked soooo much cuter this way)...it made it all bunchy around the edges and when I went to sew the binding on it was a complete disaster.  I had to "pin the crap out of it" to make it lay flat. 

LOTS of pins!

While I'm making a gift, I spend a lot of time thinking about the recipient.  It made me so happy to think about this little girl and all the people who love her so much.  I can't wait to meet her and get to know her!