I Can't Believe I Did It!

My sister's birthday is coming up. I checked her wish list on Amazon.com but wasn't particularly enthused about buying any of those things for her. I didn't feel like I had time to make anything either so I called to tell her I'm thinking about her but not to expect a gift right away. This didn't faze her; we're pretty relaxed about the timing of gifts and observation of birthdays.

During the course of our conversation I found out she has recently adopted a second cat. A short time later it occurred to me that I could make quilts for her cats. She appreciates the things I make and this would be something she could actually use. Blog reading has taught me that cats love quilts, and as far as I know her cats don't have any to call their own. I looked around on the web for inspiration and went to bed thinking about color schemes. Since she doesn't read my blog (I don't think!) I feel I can share what happened next without compromising the surprise.

This morning I pulled out some batiks in colors I'm pretty sure will work in my sister's living room. I cut 6.5" x 7.5" rectangles, layered four at a time, and slashed through the piles twice. Shuffling the layers and reassembling the pieces created wonky rail fence type blocks. I trimmed them all to 6.5" square and threw them on the design wall:

I moved a few blocks around and then sewed them together in four columns.

There was a piece of purple yardage in my stash that really needed to be used after all these years and that became the back. Simple straight line quilting down the columns holds the layers together. There was enough of one of the purples in the top to make binding. A little while later I had a finished quilt!

(Just so you know, the oranges in the light patches are not that orange in person.) It's only 24" square but I still can't believe I made the whole thing from start to finish in one day! Woohoo! I can put it in the mail on Monday and Sis should have it in time for her birthday. Then I can make a second one at Christmastime! ;- )