Quilting Kim's Kitties

My friend, Kim started Quilting for Mary, in honor of her friend Mary, a survivor of breast cancer.  Kim has worked hard to set up this organization and is dedicated to making quilts for breast cancer patients to create a fabric hug to help survivors through treatment and recovery.  She and several of her fellow quilters get together regularly to create quilt tops/backings that are then quilted and distributed to several local hospitals serving cancer survivors.  While I am not able to attend any of her sew days, I have supported her efforts by forwarding along fabric strips and yardage from my stash.

Kim's Kitties Quilt Top In Progress

Recently, Kim asked if I might be willing to quilt one of their new crib/lap sized quilt tops they would be selling at an upcoming holiday bazaar, to help raise some additional funds for Quilting for Mary efforts.  Her group had created such a fun and cute top using the Cat City Quilt Pattern, and she wondered if I might be willing to do a simple all over pattern.  Of course I agreed to help out, and upon seeing an in-progress picture of all the cute cats and fun fabric prints, I asked her if she would mind if I did a bit of customized quilting, as I am a lot like Angela Walters, who easily gets bored doing the same design over and over again.  She said "have at it" and delivered the quilt top, batting and backing at our next rendezvous.  

I brought it home and had a closer look at all the prints and designs, and then pulled out an assortment of Aurifil threads in pinks, orange, yellow, lime green, and black.  Last Sunday, I started to layer and pin baste the quilt.  Monday morning I started to stitch in the ditch along the black border and then moved onto ditching and filling in each of the green sashings in my favorite figure eight motif.  Throughout the week, I would quilt a few kitties here and there, tackling a different color at a time.  By Friday, all the cats were quilted and Sunday I stippled the light pink backgrounds and quilted the borders in lime green and hot pink Wiggly Tentacles (that looked a lot like cat ears).  In just one week--the entire top was custom quilted!   Of course, when you are having fun, time tends to fly by; and this was a very fun top to quilt.  I just loved all the colors and patterns!  I really hope it helps to raise a lot of funds for her group to continue all their fabulous work within the community!!

Detailed Shots of Quilted Kitties

Back all quilted--love the pair of cats hanging out on the back

Kim's Kitties All Quilted

Thanks to Kim and her group for a really fun project to quilt and serve as quilt therapy during a really crazy week.  Now it's time to move onto some long awaited projects...and perhaps a quick cat nap?!?