Looking back at the quilts I have made for Project Linus over the past five years, I was struck by how many gravitate to birds, insects and critters of all kinds. There are wonderful animal-themed prints galore. I also like to add a little handwork to my quilts, and that often turns out to be an appliqued animal. So just for fun I decided to challenge myself to put an animal in one child’s quilt each month in 2024.
One of my January quilts started with a print a favorite theme — joyous kokopellis. It was also an opportunity to use up some remnants with southwest motifs. But the quilt seemed a bit blah, so I adapted one of the motifs for an applique block of a howling coyote, which is baying at a crescent moon in the opposite corner. Acknowledging the kokopellis, I called this quilt “Dancing by the Light of the Moon.”
When I found a print at January’s Linus meeting with lots of little dog biscuits, I knew it was the right time to make “Patient Pups” — my version of the Fabric Cafe pattern called “Perfect Pets.” Fabric Cafe’s three-yard quilt patterns are very popular for Linus quilts. This is the only one that uses applique and I have wanted to make it for quite some time, so my February quilt animal was dogs.
The “Perfect Pets” pattern isn’t confined to puppies. It has a feline version too, which I made for one of my March quilts. I had a wild print of cat faces that reminded me of Mardi Gras masks, and a glittery metallic gold fabric. The applique cats looked to me as if they were staring out of a window, so I made my alternate blocks a deep royal sky with glittering stars and called the quilt “When Cats Wish Upon a Star.”
There seems to be no end of irresistable adorable feline fabrics, so I’ll share one more cat quilt that I made back in December 2023. The very elongated colorful cats in this print have long tails decorated with bows, like fancy kites. I called it “Let’s Go Fly a Cat.”
