Kitty quilt top done!

The day has finally arrived. I was honestly thinking that it would never come. I finally got the top together and somewhat squared for my kitty quilt. I had actually got it all pieced last nite, but was so bloody tired that I just didn't want to trim it for fear of destroying it. So it sat with ragged edges and all. heh .. this thing was a like a huge fabric puzzle for me. I had one row done and actually ripped it all apart as I moved some blocks. Not a day went by that these blocks didn't migrate to other sections of my quilt. I need to read up on squaring quilt tops as this one as a few little waves in it - i will do this before I cut and baste :).

Quilting this will be pretty straight forward for the most part. I'm going to use freemotion quilting and outline all the kitties in the quilt, will do some other motifs in the blank spaces. Not sure exactly what yet, but I'm sure it will come to me .. for some reason I'm thinking of butterflies **shrug** Lord knows why .. could be Judi's fault ;P.

The only offshoot for the quilting is to be the heads and tails for the fan kitties (notice they are headless and tailless now?? 1^st row and 4^th row). I'm going to use appliquilt for this. Meaning that they will be attached to the quilt and quilted at the same time. I'll use fusible tape to turn down the edges of the tail and head (almost thinking of raw edge applique for the tails so they fray a bit), secure it to the top with either a dab of glue stick or fusible web and quilt them into place in one shot! I sooo like that idea .. I will do a practice piece first to see if I can do .. if it doesn't work, you'll not need technology to hear my scream.

While doing some research today joanne sent me a link from a blog, Mary Johnson has some phenominal quilts and ideas. I contacted her with what I proposed. She also seems to think it'll work, along with most of the ladies from my quilt lists. BTW .. if you have a problem spot in your quilt she has a very ingenious method for fixing it, this could use for anything from bleeding colours to holes. She showed me a quilt that was all done with blues and she had quilted it, then added appliqued fishies to it afterwards .. gorgeous quilt! Be sure to check out her quilts, they are linked off her blog - it will be time well spent. Mary, Thank you!

I also pulled out an old blanket that I was thinking of using for Kyle's batting. It might work-ish. I'll have to trim a wee bit off the top and bottom to make it fit, but if I do do that, I can use those for my binding strips - at that point, I might as well take it from all sides :)