Monica's I Spy Quilt

I finally finished Monica's I Spy quilt for her baby! This quilt is done with 4" squares arranged from the lightest to the darkest. Since Monica's husband is a volunteer firefighter, I put in as many firefighter themed fabrics as I could find in my stash. I found some awesome wide ric rac trim and cut it in half and sewed it between the binding to frame it. Here is the finished quilt:

Fabricland had some cool animal themed vinyl templates which I used to quilt motifs in the squares with small loops between the blocks to tie them together. The cat was one of the motifs:

Closeup of the border and ric rac trim:

Monkey square:

Quilting from the back: