I spy with my litte eye....

As I mentioned, I was recently employed at a fabric store.  It's very common while working at the cutting counter to get into conversations with customers and co-workers about projects they're working on and what they plan to do with the fabric they are purchasing.  More than a few times I had people tell me I should make an I-spy quilt - that my kids would love it.  Eventually I decided to look the term up on the internet because while I had an idea of what an I-spy was, I was having a hard time picturing it. 

I quickly stumbled across Obsessively Stitching.  Even though I don't consider myself a quilter I knew I HAD to make this quilt!

The thought of buying 88 different fabrics made my head spin - do you know how expensive that would be??  So I searched ebay for I-spy squares.  Turns out you can buy any size and quantity of I-spy squares that you can image.  All pre-cut and fussy cut (meaning the primary image/print is centered).  So, I bought a lot of 100 I-spy squares.  I was so excited when they arrived in the mail that I took pictures!  (lame, I know)

I went thru the 100 squares and picked out the ones I wanted to use, which was somewhere around 40-50.  Rather than purchase more bulk sets of squares I went to the store and bought a bunch of novelty fabric that I liked and I made the remainder of squares myself.  88 total. 

I knew it would be easy for me to rush through process of sewing all the squares together.  It's so tedious and I was anxious to get it done - but I made a conscious effort to really take my time and do it right.  Not only did I take my time when I was pinning and sewing, but I often put the quilt to the side so I could work on different projects. 

I started the quilt at the beginning of May, and here we are at the beginning of August and I only JUST finished the front of the quilt!  Over the weekend I met my aunt (who is an amazing quilter!!!) at a fabric store and she helped me figure out what I wanted to do as far as a border, backing, and binding. 

I have a few things to do on my own then my wonderful aunt is going to come back over and teach me what I need to know to finish the quilt.

Here's the front of the quilt before I finished the bottom row.

My son already loves it!!  He's constantly pointing out different items!  In fact, just the other day he was saying "ants, mommy, ants".  I thought for sure we had ants in the house again.  But no, it was just the fabric!