Stairway to Cat Heaven

Stairway to Cat Heaven     71 X 63"

I have been working on a quilt top for Animal Haven Rescue's online silent auction fundraiser for May.  It is called Stairway To Cat Heaven; Designed by Barbara Dubovsky. The pattern is from the October 1997 Issue of McCall's Quilting, which is no longer in print, but the directions can still be found online.

Arranging the blocks

It's a fairly simple pattern, made out of 36 nine patch blocks (6 1/2 inches unfinished) arranged in a stairway design.  Next some setting triangles are added to the end of the nine patch rows (to attach the block portion to the 'sky'. ) Then it is all sewn onto a triangle of fabric ( 42 inches long and wide) which becomes the sky.  

I added an extra row of nine patch blocks so the quilt would end up being rectangular instead of square.  And I decided to make my orientation the opposite way from what the pattern showed.

After rearranging the blocks numerous times, and taking photos of most of them, I was finally happy with the arrangement.  I numbered each block, photographed the arrangement again and then sewed the blocks together in rows.

I traced the cat templates onto the Heat Bond webbing and adhered that to the back of the black fabric to make the cat silhouettes. I had lots of the dark sky/grey fabric left so I made 2 cats from that as well.  (The pattern only called for 4 cats but I figured the more the merrier, so I made 2 extra.)

How many cats now?

I added the 2 1/2 inch black border around the outside and made the moon appliqué to sew on. These appliqués are all raw edge, so I machine appliquéd around the edges in black thread (cats) and yellow around the moon, of course.

Then I had to think about the outer border. I had 5 nine patch blocks left ( having made a few extra to facilitate the block arranging) so I decided to use these 4 extra blocks as corner blocks for the border. I had been making extra 2 1/2 inch squares to use as a border, (as the directions called for), but now I had to figure out what to do to make the borders 6 inches wide  (to accommodate the 6 inch corner blocks.)

I measured my leftover fabrics, and did some math to figure out how many 2 1/2 inch strips I could make out of them. Yes! The quilting angels were with me that day! It worked out that I could make enough light grey and dark grey fabric strips to add onto all 4 sides; so along with the one scrappy row, my borders worked out. :)  

(Thank you, Quilting Angels!) 

Now to figure out which border order I liked best….

After much debate, and with Lexy's help,  I decided to put the darkest strip next to the black inner border, then, add the scrappy coloured one and last add the light grey on the very outside. The total quill top is 71 by 63 inches.

I'm quite happy with the way it all turned out!   :D

Stairway to Cat Heaven quilt top is done!  (Nahla likes it! )

Now to find some suitable back fabric and start the whole quilting process. 

Here is Lexy, our own cat on the stairway who recently made her own climb to cat heaven. :)

Happy quilting!