Flannel Rag Quilt for Cat

I realize this sounds a bit weird, but I made a quilt for my cat.

kitten in cat bed with new quilt

I had been thinking about making a rag quilt and so I decided I’d experiment with that method. I made this before I dove into the denim and pink one.

I used two pairs of old pajama pants that had ripped at the seams.  I saved the first pair because they had a cute kitty pattern and I thought I might use the fabric for patching jeans or something.  Oh, I don’t know, I’m a packrat, okay?  But I’m trying to either get rid of or use up the things I have saved, so when the second pair became unwearable, I decided to combine the two and make a little kitty quilt.

I don’t know why I thought a kitty needed a quilt.  I guess it goes back to when we first got Percy and I brought home a cat bed for him.  I bought him one that had a blanket and mouse with it (because I like things that come with bonus stuff).  I remember saying, “I don’t know why a cat needs a blanket!”  Then it turned out that Percy loved his blanket.

kitten in cat bed under blanket

Especially when it was held by one corner and dangled over him.

kitten pulling on corner of blanket

And then I thought, hey, if cats like blankets, then I have another potential class of recipients for quilts I make.  But I wasn’t going to use high quality materials.  So when I happened to have two pairs of pajama pants that matched (one even with cats and cat things on it) and part of a ripped up flannel sheet that complemented them, it made sense to make a kitty quilt.  And since the materials were all pink, I decided this quilt was for Vivienne (I know, I’m a feminist, they are cats and they don’t have a lot of social baggage about colors, I shouldn’t care if my boy cats have pink quilts, etc., but sometimes you just get tired of fighting the system, you know, and I’d already bought her the pink bed [not pictured–the red bed in the photos is Tristan’s]).

Anyway.  I cut the fabric into 5 1/2 inch squares to make five rows of five, or a final size of about 2 feet by 2 feet.  I lay out the squares and let Percy lie on top of them for quality control testing.

Percy lying on quilt blocks

The stripey squares are a regular cotton, the white kitty squares are flannel, and the back squares are a slightly thicker flannel, but it all played nice together.

I used turquoise thread, which maybe wasn’t a brilliant idea because it sure is a contrast color, but I was thinking of this project as a quirky kind of thing and it matched the kitty fabric. Also, I have about six spools of it because it was given to me as someone else’s discards, so it fit the “no new materials and use up what I have” theme I had going.

I used the drawstring and elastic from one pair of pants and the fly from the other pair to create pockets (I layered each over a plain square).

catnip mouse in quilt pocket

cat toys in quilt pocket

This is what it looked like before washing. You can see that the clipped edges have not frayed yet.

flannel cat quilt before washing

Here’s the back.

back of flannel cat quilt

And the full front, after washing. I’ve since washed it three or four more times and it has held up fine and ragged up nicely.

front of flannel cat quilt

And now Vivi has a place to keep her sparkle poufs.

Comments

  1. N says:

    Wow. That is pretty weird. Percival is one good looking bastard, though. I might have to catnap him.

  2. […] I think if you have experience with quilting you can figure out from my pictures (and the ones in this entry) how to do it. Or, I’m sure there are other instructions online. If you have a specific […]

  3. danielle says:

    Very sweet quilt, lovely cats and easy explanation with great pictures!

    Cats and ragged quilts ROCK!

    Thanks for sharing.

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