Quilt With Me- I Spy Style

Hanging behind glass on a wall in our clinic's waiting room is a quilt.  Not just any quilt, by a search and find quilt.  Next to the quilt is a list with dozens of small things to find while you wait for your appointment.    I fell in love with this quilt the first time I saw it and wanted to put together something for us to use at home.  A quilted game board of sorts... not a search and find, but an I-spy quilt.

This was a great end of year mini-quilt for a fabric junkie like myself.  Perfect for all of the odds and ends leftover from my projects over the past year.

To make the size above, you need 36- 4" squares but the nice thing is that this quilt is flexible.  You just need to make sure you have a square number (same number of rows and columns) and your squares are all the same size.  A little larger or a little smaller will only change the difficulty of the game.

Don't worry if you need to double up a few squares or put in a few "filler" fabrics that don't appear to have much value, as you play you will discover all sorts of tiny things you never noticed before and your play mates will practice their describing skills as they describe a blue fabric with shiny gold dots.  I actually used 2 squares each of 18 different fabrics, cutting from a different section for each piece.  Do not buy fabric!  Your cousin, sister, neighbor, mom...somebody has leftover scrap fabric for this, even if you don't.  Send me an email, I have plenty!  

Sew your 4" squares into strips of 6 and then sew all 6 strips together, keeping your seam allowance equal.

I added  4" strips of the backing fabric to frame the game board and then used the cheater method of binding (hem rolled the backing and folded it over the top and stitched it down).  I used a scrap piece of fairly poofy batting, but you could use something like an old flannel sheet too (although it will be much denser that way) or leave out the batting since this isn't actually a quilt meant for warmth.  

I did not quilt the top, although I have considered tying it if I get a chance someday.  It is small and wouldn't take too long.  Without quilting, this is an under an hour project with a sewing machine and it could be done quite simply by hand as well.

When you are done, you will have a great multi age, portable, family game board.  Even Logan got in on the New Years Eve game night action!