Friday, January 24, 2014

I Spy ... Monkey Business Quilt

Here's a really fun Monkey themed I-Spy Quilt that was really easy to throw together.  I'd had it planned for ages, and it's finally done.

Patty from You Keep Me in Stitches is one of my amazing sponsors.  She has been super generous in donating fabric for me to sew into quilts for Seattle Children's Hospital.  (Seriously, I'm not even sure how many surprise packets of fabric goodness have shown up as a surprise in my mailbox.)  Several months ago...or rather even longer ago that than, she sent me a yard of these fun yellow bananas.

From then on, I saved any Monkey I-Spy squares that came my way through my many I-Spy swaps, thinking it would be be to do a monkey I-Spy.  (If you're not familiar with I-Spy Quilts, each square has a different picture on them, and you generally get the squares as parts of I-Spy swaps.  I've hosted several swaps in the past, and will be doing one again soon.  If you'd like to be notified of the next one, you can go here and fill out the form at the bottom of the post or I have a couple of extra sets of I-Spy squares listed for sale in my shop here.)  I also picked up an end of bolt piece of Funky Monkey fabric from Sisters and Quilters' sale section.



Since many of my pieces were already cut into 4-inch squares, I based my other pieces off those sizes.  I cut the banana fabric and the funky monkeys into 7 1/2 inch squares and into 4 x 7 1/2 inch rectangles.  This was actually sewn together at a sewing day I had with some friends to sew hospital blankets.  I started sewing the squares into blocks and without planning them ahead too much.  Some of the blocks have 4 I-Spy squares sewn together and some of them have two I-Spy squares and then a strip of either bananas or funky monkeys.  Once the blocks were sewn up, I had a friend arrange the blocks into the quilt in a sort of balanced, yet random way.

I love how it turned out.  One of the awesome things about making hospital quilts is that people donate so much fabric.  I've gotten fabric from Katie's Comforters themselves as well as friends around town who hear I'm making quilts.  One of the challenges that comes with that is putting the different random (and sometimes a bit dated) fabrics together into something fun to sew and something a child will enjoy....which is why I love the backing and binding on this one so much.  It's kind of a dated looking red, black, gold, and cream plaid, but I think it ended up complimenting the red, gold, and cream in the quilt really well.

And I have to apologize for the slightly rumpled and wrinkled look the quilt has.  We were out visiting my in-laws for New Years, and I was in a bit of a hurry to get them dropped off to Seattle Children's Hospital.  I only had about an hour to drop them off and come back, so I didn't hold up everyone else's plans for the rest of the day, and realized I hadn't photographed the quilt yet.  It was all folded up from the trip out there, and there just wasn't time to iron or fluff it up.  Less than perfect pics keep me humble though, right?

I actually dropped off 5 or so quilts, among them was another I-Spy Quilt.

I love that his one has a square with Washington on it.

And I just LOVE it every time one of these kitties shows up on an I-Spy Quilt.  A big thank you to Patty from You Keep Me in Stitches for donating fabric for a couple I-Spy Swap spots so we could make these for the kids at Seattle Children's Hospital through Katie's Comforters.

If you're interested in participating in an I-Spy Swap, I'm not planning on doing any soon, but you can sign up to get an email when/if we do another one here.  I also ended up with a couple extra sets from our last swap, and those are here in my Etsy shop.
Please show my sponsors some love...

Pieces of Hope by from You Keep Me in Stitches

200+ I-Spy Charm Squares Set - From Pieces by Polly Quilts
Small Chevron Fat Quarter Bundle from You Keep Me in Stitches


Hexies by Halves PDF Pattern

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9 comments:

  1. The quilts are gorgeous! Some little patients are going to love them. :)

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  2. These quilts are so beautiful! I love that you made them for the hospital!

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  3. Polly, thank you SO very much for making and posting these! You are a wonder, and we appreciate all that you do!

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  4. I wish I was a quilter- I really love the i-spy monkey quilt! As a side note, both of our sons were adopted from the foster care system and when our oldest was brought home to us a lovely woman had donated quilts to give adoptive families and children. It is a gift I treasure (since we don't have a hospital blanket or momento for him). God bless the work you are doing for the children in the hospital <3

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  5. I never thought of doing a themed eye spy! Great concept and you did a great job!

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  6. Darling! Lucky little children. (And…ahem…may I point out that the "Washington" square also includes Portland!!).

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  7. Polly I love all the quilts that you make and donate to such an amazing cause. My mqg is starting to make quilts to donate to the pediatric, chemo, and dialysis units at a local hospital. I think a few I-spy ones will be great. All the monkeys are so much fun and I love how you have them spread through the entire quilt randomly. I noticed when I was sorting through my I-spy blocks a couple weeks ago that there were a bunch of monkey ones and pulled those for a fun monkey quilt, great minds think alike ;). And seeing your background reminded me that I have that banana fabric, too!
    I recently shared a stack of my I-spy squares with my best friend and have her hooked on sewing now, too. I can't wait for your next swap!

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  8. This is so adorable!! Thanks so much for sharing!

    Deanna {sew mccool}

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  9. great work on the I-SPY quilts!! One of these days I'm going to make one ;o) Thanks for linking up to Create Link Inspire! I've featured this project in my fabric weekend features and shared it all over the social media world. Would love for you to spread the word as well and pop over to check it out! EMily@nap-timecreations

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