Kitty Comforter

Let me be the first to admit that I am not a huge cat lover. I am allergic to them, but not too bad. I’m more of a dog lover. So I’m finding it hard to believe that I actually thought about the cats first thing when I saw my daughter-in-law’s guest room. She has a cute bedspread and she mentioned that the cats are really enjoying laying on the bed.

Light bulb! I have fabrics that go with her bedspread–that part was NOT a surprise. I thought a little throw at the end of the bed might be a bit easier to wash than the spread…IF the cats choose that part of the bed to lay on. We can only hope.

Here’s what I made and how I made it. I measured this little border piece

and based my block size on that…6″ blocks. And of course I wanted to make them a little wonky. Basic rule for wonky–for every cut you make, add at least 1/2″ to the size of the block you start with. Simple wonky four-patch, two cuts…I started with 7 1/2″ squares to end up with a 6 1/2″ square. Stack the fabric right side up, make your cuts and then re-arrange the stacks by moving one piece from the first stack to the bottom of that stack, two pieces from the next stack to the bottom of that stack, 3 pieces from the top of the next stack to the bottom of that stack and you can leave stack number 4 as is.

Sew the layers together, not trying to match edges! My system for keeping things straight as I chain piece these is simple. I lay half of each block on each side of the needle.

Then I sew the top pieces (top half of the block) followed immediately by the bottom pieces from the same block. As they come off the machine each block is kept together and ready to sew the next seam, with no confusion as to which half goes with which block. You only cut the chain piecing threads between blocks and the pieces of each block stay together.

When you are trying for wonky, you are happy when your seams don’t match. But sewing them together can be a problem if you are used to precision piecing. Place them so that they overlap enough to make a seam and sew along the straight edge. You may certainly trim to make an even edge but I don’t usually bother.

When you are trying for wonky, you really don’t want to match those seams. But s0metimes, just by accident, you match more perfectly than when you are trying to!

So, that’s how you do it. Trim up your blocks to size, lay them out and bam! you have a cat comforter!

Simple quilting–just straight lines throught the centers of the blocks. It IS a cat quilt, after all!! Here’s how it finished and I hope my daughter-in-law and her cats enjoy it!

I’ll be linking this to Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday, where you can check out work by lots of other artists, too!