Outside of their great fabric, I love that Free Spirit lets shop owners purchase fat quarters ahead of major releases so we can have samples ready in our shop. Tula Pink’s latest line, Curiouser and Curiouser, is one that I couldn’t wait to sew with, for obvious reasons.

It has great color, whimsical images and kitties. What more could you want. I decided to double down on the cats with my quilt and made the Cheshire Cats Diva Quilt.

You can make this quilt too with the free pattern posted to the Free Spirit website. The pattern calls for Curiouser and Curiouser for the main parts of the cats and Tula solids and stripes for accents. I used coordinating True Colors for my accents and Moda Grunge for my background.

The pattern calls for 30 cats and finishes to 74″ x 86″. As much as I would have loved to make it that size, I wanted to do a smaller shop sample that will end up being a wall hanging in my sewing room later. So I did 12 cats in a 3 x 4 layout as shown. I usually design my own pattern when Tula Pink releases a line, and since I didn’t, I wanted to change mine up a bit with a pieced border.

Here is how to make it. Each block in the pieced border is made individually and measures 3 inches when finished. For each block you will need one 3.5″ square of focus fabric and two 1.75″ squares of background fabric.

Fold the background squares in half diagonally and iron to form a sewing line from one corner to the opposite corner. Put the background fabric on your focus fabric, right sides together with corners aligned and sew along your fold line.

Trim a 1/4″ to the right of your sewn line and then fold back your triangle and press. Repeat on the other side to complete the block.

Sew your blocks together, right sides together, with a 1/4″ seam to create the border row.

You can play with the measurements to figure out how many blocks you need. For example, if your quilt is 36″ wide before borders you will need 12 3.5″ blocks (finished at 3″) to make the border for that side. I need 62 for my quilt… 13 each for the top and bottom and 18 for either side.

Experiment with the size of the focus and background fabrics to get the look you want! And if you have any questions or need help with the math drop a comment or send me an email to erin at cotton candy fabrics dot com.

Happy sewing!