I Spy a Farmer’s Market!

Pattern design by Carole Carter Make this bright and colorful kid’s quilt for the toddler who is learning to eat healthy. A basket of fresh blueberries (or your favorite fruit) is surrounded by colorful fruits and vegetables fresh from the Farmer’s Market. A great opportunity to play I Spy with your little one while teaching the fundamentals of healthy eating and food choices.

The quilt finished size is about 40 inches square. The center block is 15 inches square. Fabric Requirements Basket fabric – two scraps, one 7 inches square and one four inches square Fruit fabric – one seven inch square Background fabric – 1/2 yard Food prints – 12 eight-inch squares Veggie border print – 1/2 yard, more if you want to bind it in the same print. Binding print – 1/3 – 1/2 yard depending on how you do it (bias strips or straight grain) Cutting Instructions – Basket Fabric – one 7-inch square, and one 4-inch square Center Fruit Fabric – one 7-inch square Background Fabric – four strips 2-1/2 inches wide WOF for inner border two 7-1/2-inch squares cut on the diagonal one 4-inch square, three 3-1/2-inch squares, one strip 3-1/2 x 12-1/2 inches, two strips 2 x 15-1/2 inches Fruit and Veggie Prints – twelve 8-inch squares Veggie Print Border – 1/2 yard – four to five 3-1/2 wide strips WOF for outer border Binding print – 2-1/2 inch strips, sewn together to make a continuous binding

Sewing Instructions Begin by placing the 7 inch berry fabric and basket fabric right sides together, draw a line diagonally and cut. Sew a 1/4 seam along the cut edge (hypotenuse) to create a HST. Press with the seam towards the darker fabric, square up to 6-1/2 inches and set aside. You’ll only use one so set the other two triangles aside for another project. Using the two 4-inch squares of basket fabric and background, make two HST with the same method.. Press, square to 3-1/2 inches and set aside. Lay the large HST on your board, and arrange the smaller HSTs and three background 3-1/2 inch squares per the picture to form the basket. Sew in rows. Square up to 9-1/2 inches.

Next, take the triangles cut from the 7-1/2 inch squares, and arrange around the block to set it on point. Square this block to 12-1/2 inches.

Add the 3-1/2 x 12-1/2 inch wide strip to the top. Add the two 2x 15-1/2 inch strips to the left and right sides. Square this block to 15-1/2 inches.

Lay out your twelve 8-inch square fruit and veggie fabrics in a pleasing arrangement around the outside of the center block. This pic doesn’t show the side pieces, be sure you put them on first to the center block.

Sew the two side squares together, then to the center block. Sew the top and bottom squares in rows. Sew the rows together nesting your seams where possible. At this point, you could embroider the child’s name in the white space around the basket, or put other words, like Farmers Market, or name the fruits and vegetables that are pictured. Either embroider them or use a Pigma pen to simply write the names.

Add a border of 2-1/2 inch wide cut strips of background fabric, measuring your quilt to get the proper length. Be sure you use proper border application technique, you can see how to do that with my tutorial on Borders. See the top of my blog for all my tutorials, or just click on How to Attach Quilt Borders the Right Way – to avoid ruffled edges.

Add a second border of 3-1/2 inch wide food print fabric, to pick up the color you want to accent most. I like red and primary colors for kids, so I went with tomatoes.

Quilt as desired. I used an allover leaf pantograph design, and this could be easily done freehand on a DSM.

Bind with whatever color or print you like. Sometimes I like to match the border print, sometimes I match the backing print. Other times I put a contrasting binding on, and for this quilt I used the fabric from the basket to pull that color across the quilt. See my four part tutorial on binding a quilt - Making Bias Binding, Sewing to the Quilt, Joining Binding Ends, and Stitching the Edge to the Back.

Here is my finished quilt! I hope you have fun making one too!

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