Every sewing room has staff. Nobody hired them, nobody pays them in anything but treats, and they have never once arrived on time for a meeting, yet the work would feel strange without them. The Pet-Inspired Collection is our tribute to that loyal crew, so we sat down and wrote their annual review.
Initiative: exceeds expectations
Our top performer is the Helping cat, a sleek black cat sprawled across the cutting mat with a little tag on her side that reads HELPING, while a hand reaches in to smooth the fabric she happens to be lying on. A spool of thread rolls off to one side. She has taken full ownership of the project. She has also taken full ownership of the ruler. In grey, deep purple or black, she looks equally unbothered.
After-hours culture
Cats, Quilts and Cabernet covers the evening shift: a teal and white cat curled up beneath a vintage sewing machine, a glass of red at her elbow, all set inside a patchwork of sunny blocks and puffy clouds with the words in loose script. Kitty Cat Quilts takes the night watch. A cat covered in folk art swirls sits upright beside a vintage machine under a sunburst arch, a sun on one side and a crescent moon on the other, blooms gathering at her feet. She glows in magenta and green, and in a cool blue version the cat turns white as lace against the navy.
Commitment to long projects
A dachshund stretched the full length of a patchwork quilt earns the award for dedication, and the lettering curving over his back says it best: Long Project, Big Commitment. Anyone with a queen-size quilt on the frame understands him completely. Joining him in the slow and steady department is a tortoise inside a round Petrified Forest National Park badge, as patient as a hand-sewn binding. Then there is Pets & Fabric, That's About It, in big bold letters, which is less a design than a mission statement for the whole department.
For every quilter with a furry supervisor
This collection belongs to the quilter who has sewn around a sleeping cat rather than wake her, the friend whose dog always picks the newest quilt, and anyone in The Stitch Circle who has found a spool of thread batted under the couch for the third time this week. You know the one whose phone is nothing but pet photos and fabric pulls. Overall rating for the studio assistant: outstanding. Areas for growth: please stop sitting on the pattern.
Written by Judy. Thanks for reading.
