Quarantine UFO Series #15, The Last Cat Quilt

 

Back in the early 2000’s, my mom introduced me to quilting. She invited me to a block-of-the-month at a local sewing shop and I was hooked. Around that time, my mom found a whimsical fabric that she loved. It was on clearance and she wasn’t sure what her plan was for it yet, so she decided to buy the bolts that were left; 3 in total.

 

 

A couple of years past and I think she may have completed a small baby quilt with some of it. She asked if I thought I’d like to make something with it, and I thought… why not? It would be fun to practice a block pattern and my quilting. 

 

 

I finished a churn dash quilt in 2007 and then decided it would be super fun to make tea cups, as that is the theme on the fabric. I designed a pattern and started working. After finishing 16 tea cups, I was at a loss as to what to do next. I didn’t have enough tea cups to make a reasonably sized quilt and I was really tired of making the tea cups. You can only do fussy work for so long. So, the project got tabled. Life got busy and I was distracted with other projects.

 

 

Fast forward to now and I have really been trying hard to work through all my backed up UFOs. I have been doing so well and really cranking out these projects. I feel like it’s given me some freedom to consider new projects, and it’s cleared out some of my stash so I can get some new goodies. 

 

 

This one really needed to get finished. It was time. I pulled out the blocks and thought I’d get back to work on them, but instead I realized I can make more blocks that are something other than tea cups. It really opened up the possibilities in my mind.

 

 

 

I was able to come up with a sweet little heart pattern to alternate with the tea cups and then laid it out in a pattern that looks like shelving. I finished the top with a border on 3 sides.

 

 

For the back, I used the fabric I had the most of, the pink kitty faces. I had so much of this that even after making the quilt, I was able to make 5 pillow cases to match! What?!?

 

 

 

 

 

For the quilting, I outlined the tea cups and the hearts, and then did a basic meander to fill in the rest. I finished it with binding with the same fabric I’d used for the borders, and this bad boy was all done.

 

 

It felt so good to use up the last of this fabric. It also felt good to complete a vision I had long ago, even if it was different than what I expected.

 

 

I’m not sure what I’m going to do with this one. It’s future is yet to be determined. That’s okay though. I was able to practice some techniques, fine tune my skill, and fall in love with possibilities all over again. What a great finish!