Sebastian's mother is Gianna, our foreign exchange student, who came to live with us for the 1985-86 school year. Seven years later she returned to the USA and married the classmate who had taken her to the senior prom while she lived with us. She has remained a part of our family all of these years and her children call us Grama and Grampa so we do consider them our grandchildren.
Shortly before Gianna gave birth to Sebastian, I received an invitation to attend a baby shower out in Tulsa, Oklahoma from one of Gianna's co-workers. I wrote back and made arrangements to send this quilt to the hostess of the shower and she placed my package among the others and said nothing to Gianna. It was a complete surprise when she opened the bag and took out the quilt!
We had visited Gianna and Don four years earlier while I was searching for just the right fabrics to make "I Spy" quilts for my grandsons, Braden and Xander. Gianna got caught up in my search and after I returned to Maryland I received a package from her of some additional fabrics she had found after I left. Right then and there I decided that if she ever had a baby boy, I would make an I Spy quilt for him.
For this one I "fussy cut" (centered in square) my designs into a five inch square and was careful to choose backgrounds that would blend and form diagonal stripes across the quilt. This way he could learn colors while he was playing the I Spy game and finding the objects on the quilt. The names of the objects to find are machine embroidered in a rainbow of colors all around the white border of the quilt.
Below is a photo of Sebastian that was taken when we visited them in May 2007. He is three and a half years old.
