A quilting friend gave me a stack of cat motif fabrics curated by Gather Here in Cambridge, MA. Wanting to cut right into them, I decided to use the Cut, Sew, Repeat I learned in the on-line class with Cheryl Arkison in December. (See my December 22, 2022 post).

For this quilt I decided to use the improv curves we learned to do in Cheryl’s 2022 year-long weekly Quilters Playcation Adventure Sew Along #qpadventuresewalong on Instagram.

In my mind I wanted the narrow middle strip to be very narrow—maybe 1/4 inch wide. But I chickened out when I started cutting. Those curves are all on the bias and I was worried such a narrow strip would stretch too much and I didn’t have any extra fabric to use. I added some solid blue and solid pink fabric to make the quilt a tad larger.

I used my 12 1/2 inch square ruler to cut the blocks from the fat quarter. That left me with a good sized 18 inch strip at the bottom of the fat quarter and a section of fabric next remaining on the side of the block cut.

You do lose fabric sewing improv curve blocks. From the 12 1/2 inch starting block, I ended up with 9 1/2 x 10 1/2 finished blocks. I chose to keep them as rectangles, maximizing the size of the trimmed blocks.

I used the bottom strip left on the fat quarter to cut fabric for a binding. The side pieces I cut in vertical strips to make the checkerboard blocks at the bottom and left side of the quilt. That essentially used all the the fabric in each fat quarter.

This went together so quickly. I sewed the curved blocks in an afternoon. The borders took me longer as it wasn’t the puppy’s nap time!

And speaking of that puppy, it’s really hard to get any sewing done, even when he is napping. There is no way I can keep my by previous pace of a post a week. I just don’t have enough free time to sew, never mind actually quilting. My posts this year are going to be erratic…that’s just how life is right now! It’s all good!

While I was ironing today, it got just too quiet…this is what I found when I went to investigate! It’s January, a bit early to turn over the garden. At least in my opinion!!