Santorini Cats - New York Beauty Challenge for Island Batik

I am excited to show you what I made for the June Island Batik Ambassador Challenge!  

This month we are having a blog hop featuring the newest collections from Island Batik that are arriving at your quilt shops - and the challenge was to use the New York Beauty quilt block as our design inspiration. I can tell you that this block is fairly challenging to make as it includes lots of sharp points as well as curved piecing.  I loved the fabric I received in my Ambassador box last January, so it was fun to come up with a quilt to showcase them.  

The collection I received was Santorini - designed by Claudia Pfiel!  I have really enjoyed working with her collections in the past, and this one was terrific, too!  It was inspired by the Grecian Island of Santorini and features gorgeous colors and abstract shapes in a modern design.  So beautiful!  Here is the video I recorded when I first opened this bundle:

I think you will like these as much as I do!

At first I planned on making a more traditional piece, but as I browsed Pinterest for ideas, I came upon a very neat idea for using the blocks as cats!  It took me a bit of looking as the pattern is out of print, but I found a copy on Ebay - Sawtooth Cats is the name of the pattern.  .

And I found out that Santorini is a bit famous for it's cats as well! Well that made me super excited about my project!

Just google Cats of Santorini Island and you will see dozens of gorgeous pictures! I used the pattern as a starting point for my quilt, but opted for a more modern design as I felt it suited the fabrics better, plus I didn't want to make that pieced border. I wanted to keep my cats right side up and decided that since cats aren't the most cooperative animals that they should be arranged so they weren't in staight rows!  I used every bit of that background fabric that I had left to stagger my rows!  I ended up with a quilt that is actually wider than it is tall, but I actually like it that way.  Isn't it cute?

I think this would make a lovely wall hanging, but it's also perfect for the back of a sofa.  And of course, as a lap quilt!  It's 68 inches wide and 59 inches tall.  I used Hobbs Heirloom 80/20 cotton for the batting in this and Aurifil thread for both piecing and quilting.  And of course a Schmetz needle - actually 2, an older one for the paper piecieng and a new one for the remaining piecing and quilting.

The arcs are paper pieced, as well as the tails, so that part was pretty easy.  I haven's sewn any curved seams for a while, but they really went well once I got one or two under my belt!  

I like to piece curves with a minimum of pins, so I usually just put one in each end and the middle, and it works like a charm.  I put the concave part of the curve on the top and just stitch slowly around the curve, easing the fabric as I go. 

I like to stitch the larger curve first and finish with the smaller curve (the smaller the curve the more difficult it is to sew!)

I press these away from the pieced arcs.  Twenty of them took a few days to get done between the paper piecing and the curved seams!

After I got the curves pieced I added the head and feet, then figured out what I needed to add to the back of the cat and the bottom so I could sew the tails on. You have to think aheasd because the tails are directional. I used the background fabric and sewed to to the pieced tails as a backing, turned them right side out, then hand appliqued them to the background.  Try as I might, I ended up with one cat facing the wrong way - of course!  I figured it would just add to the "cattitude" and left it as is, can you spot it in the finished quilt?

This ginger cat is my favorite of the bunch (or clowder, as a group of cats is called!). 

It was fun to come up with different combinations of colors for all 20 cats.  Each cat has a different color for the belly and feet, and each fabric is used so you can admire all of them!  I used Bronze from the basics line in the piecing of the arcs as well as the binding.  The background is Porcelain from the Naturally Neutrals selection of basics.  I used up all the rest of this except for some small scraps - this was also the background in my project from February - Colorado Memories, and it's one I really like for using with a collection with a lot of warm tones.

I really had fun making this quilt, and I love that it's a different take on what you can do with a New York Beauty block!  I had quite a bit of fabric left over from my project, and instead of hording it all and not using it, I thought it would be a great idea to give some of it away! 

 I cut a bunch of 5 inch squares, and am going to give you a chance to win a set of 40, two each of every design - plus I'll throw in a 5 inch roll of strips and your choice of one of these charm square table runner patterns:  Cobblestones or Windmills.

To sweeten the pot, I am going to add another opportunity to win a set of squares with every 25 entries to my giveaway, so the more entries, the more opportunities to win!  Just enter the rafflecopter below for your chance to enjoy these lovely fabrics!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Make sure you visit Anorina Morris at Samelia’s Mum to see what she made with these fabrics!

Thanks to Island Batik, Hobbs Batting, Schmetz needles, and Aurifil thread for the products provided for this project!