Weston's I-Spy...an adventure in novelties

A few weeks ago I decided to make my 2 year old DGS an I-spy quilt...I combed through websites, blogs, etc and finally stumbled on the Happy Child Quilt pattern by Villa Rosa Designs...perfect!  I ordered it immediately, then went to work gathering novelty fabrics appropriate for a 2 year old boy.  I had more in my stash than I thought, though no idea how they got there, but a few trips to Joanne's and Wal-Mart set me right up...except for one thing! I had no idea what size blocks they were since I didn't have the pattern yet, so I winged it.  Being an extremely frugal (read cheap) person, I bought 30 (yes 30!) different fabrics all at 6" x WOF each.  When the pattern came, darned if they weren't supposed to be cut at 8"...so there I was, too short.  A lot of them I could just flip, but quite a few were direction sensitive...poo. 

Anyhoo, I got creative, managed the design enough to suit my fussiness and sewed happily away.  About 1/2 way through the process, I realized that I do not care for novelty or I-Spy designs.  They offend my sense of order!  But my new MO of late has been to break out of my box and "wing it" when it comes to design, color, etc.  I'm trying wonky quilt blocks, crumb and strip piecing and major scrap busting in making new blocks.

 

So it's been cut and pieced and I'm in the process of quilting it myself.  Some of the free-motion quilting is a little wonky, but this is only the second one I've done myself and this Kenmore sewing machine isn't the best for that.  I'm getting better as I get closer to being done, but you can certainly see my progress thoughout the quilting.

The quilt is almost done and its actually going to be perfect for my little man.  Is it a Paducah-quality masterpiece? Not by any stretch of the imagination, but it is perfect for a little guy who likes soft, colorful things that he can also play I-Spy with his Mommy on.