I Spy Llamas!

I finished another I-Spy quilt! I am slowly making I-spy quilts as birthday gifts for my nephews, niece, and son, so the format of this quilt may look familiar since it’s the same that I used for a previous quilt. I created a strip of clues for the back of this quilt, just as I did in the earlier one.

I made this I-Spy quilt for my llama-loving nephew. The four corners of the quilt showcase various llama fabrics and I used the bottom right ‘llamas in space’ fabric (found on spoonflower) for the pillowcase. I was especially pleased to create a llama quilting pattern that I used my embroidery machine to quilt onto the borders (I took a quilting pattern and a line drawing of a llama pattern and created a mashup of the two). It’s not perfect (especially on the backside where you can see tiny knots), but I’ve learned enough to hopefully make the next one seamless!

Before deciding on what color my borders would be, I picked up a variegated thread that I planned on using for the llama quilting. Once I decided on the border color, I realized my red, white, and blue thread just wouldn’t work and was going to put it aside for some future project when I got the idea to use it for my straight line quilting. I was quite happy with the way it came out.

I envisioned having a llama detective peeking out on the quilt label and was super happy to find the perfect stuffed llama on eBay to base my detective on. I found a llama embroidery design and changed it around to give me the detective look that I wanted. I created all of the detective features using letters and punctuation (2 commas for the mustache, an ‘O’ and periods for the monocle…). I was really pleased with the final outcome.

After being washed and dried:

My quilting helper:

Ready to be packaged complete with a monocle necklace taped to the label as the finishing touch. After all, when you’re working with such a debonair detective partner, you’ve got to look the part yourself, right?:

I-spy quilt stats - 2 down, 3 to go, 1 in progress

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Eeeek! This is the pinnacle (or monacle?) of delightfulness. I llove every llast bit of it!
Also, your nephew ought to go by Lliam, heehee :llama:

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This is just so amazing in so many ways! The llama stitching is incredible, and the llamas in space fabric is too cute!

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Oh, my, that llama quillting! Fabullous!

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This is absolute treasure! So many wonderful llama details!

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What a delightful package. And what fun!

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Whoa! This is amazing! I love it!

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This is amaaaaazing! Great work! The llama quilting stitch just pushes it over the top!

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What a beautiful and thoughtful gift! All the llamas (and especially your helper) are just too cute!

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Amazing, especially the llama quilted borders! Great fabric choices too.

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He does sometimes call himself Liam Llama :grin:.

My little helper just can’t resist a quilt that’s been laid out on the floor (whether it’s finished or not, lol) :blush:

Thank you, everyone! I was thrilled when I found the line drawing of the llama and started playing around with the idea of turning it into a quilt stitch!

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Congrats! Your I Spy Llamas is one of this week’s featured projects. You are amazing!

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Thank you, I really appreciate that!

Yesterday was my nephew’s birthday and the entire package was very well received!! He and his brother were referring to the monocled llama as a detective as soon as they saw him. My nephew instantly put the monocle necklace on and was excited to figure out the clues. It made me happy to see what a hit it was :blush:.

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