I have two quilts finished for donation to the annual Festival of Trees which benefits Primary Children’s Medical Center. Our family has been decorating trees since 2000 in honor of my husband’s brother Paul, who was killed in the line of duty in the Air Force in 1995. I have been on a volunteer committee for the Festival for almost that long which requires donations of sale items for the Gift Boutique, committee projects for Elf Emporium, as well as volunteering during the Festival week. As we are getting older and our various life circumstances have changed, we have decided to alter the way our family does Festival so we are decorating three small trees to use up all the leftover items from past years and then plan to be done. My sister-in-law Michelle, who is Paul’s widow, and I are pursuing some other ways to donate and have tried something different this year.
The rainbow I Spy quilt on the left is for Centerpieces and Collectibles. I made the quilt based on Amy Smart’s design using 3.5″ squares of a white with black dot and I didn’t save selvage so I don’t know the manufacturer. The I Spy squares came from my stash, my quilting partners’ stashes, leftover blocks from an I Spy exchange among the Alpine Quilt Group that nobody wanted, and a couple fat quarters I bought to get the full spectrum.
I pieced the back with a strip of extra blocks and a green polka dot called Strawberry Fields Revisited by Joanna Figueroa of Fig Tree & Co. for Moda. Michelle and I wanted to stay away from blue or pink for the back so that it would work for any child. The binding is black with densely scattered white dots called 2014 Christmas Pattern 7806 by Andover Fabrics. The quilting was done by Linda at Just Sew in a square in square pattern I chose because I thought it nicely paralleled the squares on the top.
We will add some I Spy books to the quilt and the grouping will be auctioned on the opening evening. Hopefully someone will fall in love and take it home for their little one!
The other quilt will be donated for sale in the Gift Boutique at Festival of Trees. It uses the same design but with some different blocks and the neutral squares are a black swirl on white. Apparently I just went into a cutting frenzy when I started both these quilts and didn’t save any selvages so no news on that manufacturer, either.
I also pieced the back using a vertical strip of extra blocks, a horizontal strip of blue in my stash at the bottom because the backing piece ended up too small, and a red-light blue-dark blue stripe from Riley Blake called October Afternoon. It’s hard to see with the mottled sunshine from the neighboring tree but it’s really cute. I did a scrappy binding with reds from my stash like Daysail, Mimosa, something by Angela Anderson from Quilting Treasures, and unidentified dots and swirls. I really like scrappy bindings but was afraid a rainbow scrappy would be too busy with all that’s happening on the top, but a monochrome scrappy binding turned out perfect! Quilting exactly the same as the auction quilt.
So there you have it. Two I Spy quilts for my favorite charity plus piles of cut blocks already sorted into bags to make at least 5 more for future years. This may be one of my annual contributions because they are easy to make, cute, very clever, and fun for kids and adults alike.
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