The first I Spy quilts were designed by Possibilities and were featured on Simply Quilts with Alex Anderson. They had hexagons joined together with triangles filling in. It was patterned in their book P.S. I Love You Two, published in 1992. In the narrow inner border, they machine embroidered the words I Spy, and then named an image for the child to look for. Since then, other people have taken that idea and designed other quilts, but they have the same intent.