I Spy Quilt FREE Pattern & Tutorial!!!

I Spy Quilt 5" Charm Packs are NOW AVAILABLE in our fabric shop!!! These quilts are SO much fun to make, and the special little in your life will have hours and hours of fun playing I Spy! These quilts are fun to cuddle on the couch with, a really fun addition to a bedtime routine, as well as really fun in the car!!! I keep one in my car at all times and my kids have been well entertained while waiting for appointments as well as road trips. Can you tell I'm excited about this Free Pattern & Tutorial!?!

Our I Spy Charm Packs contain 80 - 5" squares of super fun kid fabrics, no repeats! Currently we are offering separate Boy & Girl versions, and throughout our Christmas In July Sale we are offering these amazing little charm packs for $30 each, or $25 each when purchasing two or more! After our Christmas In July Sale these charm packs will return to our regular value price of $35 each. Even if your schedule is full and you are lacking sewing time this summer, I highly recommend purchasing your charm pack(s) while supplies last!

Shopping List:

- I Spy Quilt 5" Charm Pack (includes 80 different 5" squares)
- 1/4 Yard of Frame Color #1
- 1/4 Yard of Frame Color #2
- 1/4 Yard of Frame Color #3
- 1/4 Yard of Border Fabric
- 1/2 Yard for the Binding
- 1.5 Yards for the Backing
- Batting of Your Choice (I use Warm & Natural)

Cutting List:

7 - 1" Strips of Frame Color #1
7 - 1" Strips of Frame Color #2
6 - 1" Strips of Frame Color #3

5 - 1.5" Strips of Border Fabric

5 - 2.5" Strips for the Binding (or whatever size binding you prefer to make)

I Spy Quilt FREE Pattern & Tutorial:

Step One: Arrange all 80 charm squares into groups of four.

Step Two: Sewing in groups of four, sew two squares together, then the other two squares together. To save time I don't stop between each pair, instead I chain stitch (continue stitching without overlapping) both pair. For the duration of this project, all seams are 1/4".

Step Three: After sewing the two pair of squares, iron the seams opposite so that one will lay to the right, and one will lay to the left.

Step Four: Carefully match the center of each seam in the middle, pin, then sew both sets together. Iron seam down.

Step Five: Repeat for the remaining 19 blocks of four squares each.

Step Six: Arrange the 1" strips in whatever color pattern you prefer. I arrange mine in a diagonal, but this is entirely up to you and what you like the look of best. This is the time to be picky and arrange them and rearrange them as many times as you like!

Step Seven: Add the frames around each block. I begin with the right seam, then the bottom, the left, and lastly the top seam.

Press all of your seams out and flat. Here is a peek at the back of my block:

Repeat this until each block of four squares has the frame sewn. Then, sew all of the blocks together!

Step Eight: Add the border strips. Before you begin, cut one strip in half, and sew each half onto another strip so that you have two strips that are 44" in length, and two strips that are 66" in length. Starting on the right side, sew the border strip. Next, sew the bottom border, left border, and lastly the top border.

Step Nine: Make your quilt sandwich. Begin by ironing the backing fabric for the quilt. Lay our the backing, wrong-side up. Add the batting. Then add the quilt top, righ-side up. Baste your quilt however you like. I have yet to quilt this sample because I am waiting for my brand-spankin'-new longarm quilting machine to arrive!!! If you have a longarm, awesome. If not (the following is how I have quilted ALL of my quilts together for the past 15+ years) use safety pins and secure your quilt sandwich. I pin through all three layers about every 4". This is entirely up to you, but I am very, VERY fussy about not making puckers and folds while quilting, so I pin, pin, pin. If you can't find your safety pins at the moment DO NOT use straight pins, get into your car (or Amazon!) and get yourself some safety pins. Not to be bossy, just been there and done that, and I couldn't give my first few quilts away when I first started because they were soaked in my blood - all from using straight pins! Yes, my first few because I'm a slow learner! ;-)

Step Ten: Quilt however you like. If you like to free-motion quilt, great! If not, ANY kind of quilting will be great, just make sure you follow your batting instructions and quilt the suggested minimums. For me, I like to "stitch in the ditch" or stitch between all of the squares on their seams, otherwise I really like the look of stitching through the squares on the diagonal. Want to be really fun and creative - try quilting waves or random straight lines! This is a FUN quilt so do what you love or try something new!

Step Eleven: Finish/Bind your quilt. I have made quilts with all different sized binding...some skinny and some fat. I love them all. For this particular pattern I suggest cutting 2.5" strips, sewing them all together, iron/press them in half with the right-side out, then I stitch them to the back, and top stitch them down using my machine on the front. I ONLY sew my binding on by machine, never by hand. Hand sewing is beautiful as well as traditional, but whenever sewing anything baby or kid related it is important to know it will be washed MANY more times than possible to imagine! Machine sewn binding is very sturdy and durable while hand sewn binding needs mending after multiple washes. As always, do what you like best, these are just my opinions and suggestions!

I have yet to quilt this I Spy Quilt because I am waiting for my brand-spankin'-new longarm machine to arrive! I'm SO EXCITED, can you tell!?! I have already prepared my quilt binding so I am ready to go as soon as I can finish the quilting, so the following picture is with the binding along the edges - when sewn it will be 1/4" skinny binding!!!

If you are interested in our I Spy Charm Packs and/or the additional fabrics, feel free to use the Shopping List at the top of this tutorial, or for convenience we offer the fabrics in a completion kit. Please leave a comment on this blog post, live chat with us, or message us on Facebook if you have any questions or if you would like to share a picture of your finished I Spy Quilt!

As always, you may use my Free Pattern to create and sell as many of these quilts as you like! No written credit to me is needed, but if anyone ever asks where you purchased your awesome fabric, please share our website!

Happy Sewing!!!

Unpaper Towel Tutorial Part 1

Recently on Facebook a conversation fired up about Unpaper Towels and how amazing they are - a must have! One of my customers, Heather, took the lead by posting multiple tutorials for several of you who asked for them, and she commented on the parts of each tutorial she liked and why. That was a really fun thread, thank you again to all of you who participated! I messaged Heather and asked her if she would be interested in writing a tutorial for all of us and as busy as she is, she said YES! Get ready to be impressed, these are gorgeous as well as my new favorite thing!!!

Unpaper towels have an unbelievable amount of uses that greatly help the environment as well as your wallet! A six pack of paper towels often runs around $2-$3 a roll and over time, that adds up to be quite a lot! Being that there are so many daily uses for paper towels, unpaper towels pay for themselves very quickly and are a one-time cost. When it comes to little ones, unpaper towels are very handy because we all know they like to make messes! Unpaper towels are great for cleaning spills, wiping the counter top, drying your hands and thrown right in the laundry. Easy enough! The addition of snaps make the unpaper towel even more beneficial as they can be clipped anywhere you might need one. In my extended amounts of time on the internets, I came across a great use for unpaper towels and ice packs. Putting an ice pack inside the unpaper towel and closing the snaps keeps the ice pack in place and looks cute! I could never run out of uses for unpaper towels and it makes me even happier knowing I have one less thing to remember at the store!

Start this wonderful journey by assembling your materials:
- Rotary Cutter
- Cutting Mat
- Quilting Ruler
- 2 Yards of Flannel (or 1 Yard Flannel & 1 Yard Terry Cloth)
- Snaps & Pliers
- Scissors

1. I chose Robert Kaufman’s Bermuda Remix Chevron flannel as well as Bermuda Remix Dots flannel from StitchStashDiva. I decided to make two rolls of unpaper towels and compare them at the end. One roll will be flannel on one side and terry cloth on the other. The second roll will be double sided flannel. The terry cloth I had already laying around in my stash. If you do not want to make a trip to the store for terry cloth, cut up any old towels you might have for an even cheaper option.

2. For once in my nine years of sewing, I started by actually washing and drying the fabric first. I am far too impatient to wash my fabric before cutting in to it..oops! I did one roll of half sheets and one roll of full sheets. For the half sheets, I cut my fabric into 12 pieces 11”x6”. If using a full yard, you could get about 20 sheets. For the full sheets, I cut 12 pieces 11”x9” which took up the whole yard.

3. Now it is time to head to the sewing machine! I recently bought a serge machine to make my life a little easier and will be using that to make the unpaper towels. Please excuse my not so perfect serging…I am still getting a hang of this machine! If you do not have a serge machine, the turned and top stitched method works but is just a bit more time consuming. Start by placing flannel and terry cloth pieces wrong sides together and go around all the edges of each piece.** For the alternate method, place flannel and terry cloth right sides together. Go around the edges with a ¼” seam allowance, leaving a small opening to turn right side out. I like to go around the edges before turning and clip the corners for a pointier corner. After turning right side out, go around all the edges with a 1/8” seam allowance, making sure to close the opening.

4. Time for the snaps! For a set of 12 unpaper towels you will need 48 caps, 24 sockets and 24 studs. In the picture I laid out the snaps to show the difference between caps, sockets and studs since that can be a bit confusing sometimes! For KAM snaps, please visit: I Like Big Buttons.

5. Use the awl provided in snapping kits and poke a hole in each corner at about a ¼” in from the edge. I never precisely mark my holes, I usually eyeball where the snaps should go with good results.

Unpaper Towel Tutorial Part 2

8. This is what a finished piece should look like, caps facing up on the left side and sockets facing up on the right side.

9.Snap the sheets together and roll up or roll around a paper towel dispenser.

Experimentation time! I spilled some water on the table and wiped it up with both sets of unpaper towels. I would definitely recommend unpaper towels with a terry cloth backing as they are more absorbent and still offer a soft flannel side for wiping your face. The set of double sided flannel unpaper towels were slightly absorbent but not enough to my liking and would be better for using like a washcloth or wiping off faces and counters. In the end, either type of unpaper towels are a great addition to any home!

THANK YOU, Heather!!!

Heather is a mother of two children who are her inspiration for pretty much everything she does. She is in college full time as well as a Work-At-Home-Mom part-time. Her love for sewing and everything crafty began when she was 14 visiting her Great Aunt in the summer. She taught her all about sewing and shared an important life lesson with Heather from one fabric hoarder to a future one, “if you see a fabric you love, just buy a yard”…so she does! Heather's main passion is making quilts but since becoming a mother, and a frugal one at that, she has learned to make cloth diapers, bibs, baby shoes, baby toys and many other things. Knowing she's not the only one who loves to save money, she was thrilled to be given the opportunity to share her process for making unpaper towels.

Heather says :They are very simple to make and Robert Kaufman’s line of flannel fabrics are amazingly soft, perfect for little faces while also adding a pop of color anywhere in your house!"

Thank You, Heather!!!

To purchase any of www.StitchStashDiva.com's Designer Flannel please CLICK HERE

If you are interested in writing a blog post for Stitch Stash Diva, please message me directly at:

Tayva(at)StitchStashDiva.com

Happy Sewing!!!