Bits Of Whimsy Quilts: SCRAPPY SAWTOOTH CATS QUILT 😸 😸 😸

The SCRAPPY SAWTOOTH CATS QUILT is my version of a quilt designed by Janet Miller called SAWTOOTH CATS. I made this quilt as a Christmas gift for my son and daughter-in-law's three rescue kitties ... Teek, Tribble and Gin❣️

There is much that I liked about this quilt pattern and much that I would rather see changed ... SO ... I changed it. You can see a picture of the original pattern beneath. I didn't make the cats upside down or facing one another; instead, I made them all going in one direction in one row and then in the other direction in the next row and so on. I also did not have their tails hanging outside of the quilt block. Instead, I made the quilt blocks bigger and appliquéd the tails inside of the block. I also chose vibrant colors and not the browns and beiges shown on the pattern. I put in colorful sashings and decided against the sawtooth border. I just sorta made it my own, but that's what's fun about quilting ... you can do that.

Original Sawtooth Cats Pattern

I know that my son frequently washes the quilts that I make him so I pre-washed all the batik fabrics before sewing the quilt top to make sure that the colors wouldn't bleed later on when washed. Batiks are hand dyed using wax and a series of dyes. Using Synthrapol to pre-wash them will help to remove any excess dye or wax from the surface of the fabric. First, I sorted the colors into small loads of red/purple, orange/yellow and green/blue. Then, using hot water, I added a little more than a teaspoon of Synthrapol to each load. I used a quick wash cycle and then pressed them while damp to square them back into shape again. I also pre-washed the backing and squared that back up again while damp. I had six yards of that for the backing and binding so that wasn't quite so easy to do.

Once everything was pre-washed and ready to go I cut out my fabric and then started to piece the quilt top together. The back of the cats and their tails are paper pieced. I love doing paper piecing. It's a great way of getting small pieces sewn precisely together. The only difficulty is that there is a lot of seams involved with all those tiny pieces and when it came time to appliqué the tails on it was hard to turn the seams under nicely with all that bulk. I sewed them first to double sided fusing and then fused them onto the fabric to get them ready to be appliquéd on.

Paper Piecing the Kitty

This quilt is a perfect way to use up some of your fabric stash. That's what makes this quilt a scrappy version of the Sawtooth Cats Pattern. Just tossing in any ol' fabric doesn't make for a visually pleasant quilt though. You have to have a "deliberate randomness" to your layout in order for the quilt to pop. I also don't have much of a fabric stash so I ordered some fat quarters in bright colors to supplement what I did have on hand.

The little cat faces are embroidered on. Once embroidered I went over them with black thread to anchor them a bit more. I didn't want the embroidery to get pulled off by the real kitties once the quilt was gifted.

They were having a batik fabric sale at Hancock's of Paducah online and so I scooped up some batik cat fabric in blue for the backing. Sometimes, the backing can be the most expensive part of the quilt. Four to five yards of fabric at twelve dollars a yard is a lot. So, when I saw this $12.00 a yard batik cat fabric on sale for $5.99 a yard I grabbed it. It's so cute! I also wanted to add some additional color to the quilt top and so instead of using the light colored sashings that the pattern calls for I used this blue kitty batik fabric that I had purchased for the backing. And although it's hard to see the white background fabric in the blocks has tiny cat paws on it.

I did the embroidery and appliqué on all twenty blocks while watching a series called "Mr. Robot" on Amazon for free. I watched all three seasons while stitching. When that was done I assembled the quilt top using colorful squares between all the sashings.

When it came time to bind the quilt I found out that season four of "Mr. Robot" was out so I got to finish watching the entire show from beginning to end.

Binding rolled onto the Binding Baby

Before putting the quilt top on the longarm I spent some time marking it. I did all the markings for the quilting in the sashings and all of the markings for the crosshatching for the quilting in the blocks.

Then it was time to load it onto the longarm ... my favorite part of quilting!

I used Quilter's Dream white polyester batting for this quilt. I did this because of the white background fabric. Regular batting is somewhat beige or yellow in color and can make white fabric look dingy, but the Quilter's Dream white works perfectly.

I used Glide thread in the color, "Sky", for the sashings. For the Glide thread I used a BERNINA 90/14 Jeans needle. I kept my tension at normal which is 4.0 and my bobbin tension at 200 on the TOWA gauge. For all the stitch in the ditch work on the kitties I used Aurifil Monofilament and So Fine in the bobbin. For that combination I used a Superior Threads Titanium 80/12 Top Stitch needle and reduced my top tension to 1.75 and my bobbin tension to 180. Then for the cross hatching in the blocks I kept the So Fine in the top and bobbin.

I also made a drawstring bag to use to gift the quilt with and to store it in. I used the leftover backing material to make it with.