Design Wall Monday--Bookshelf Quilt Additions.

 Design Wall Monday--see more design walls on Judy's Small Quilts and Doll Quilts blog. 

I'm still working on the bookshelf quilt for my niece, with the recent focus on objects other than books, to help fill up the shelves. A search online for a cat block that would be suitable yielded plenty of options, but a lot of them were too tall for my purpose.  However, in 2009 I made this quilt from an online mystery called Twisted Tails, from which I saved the directions.   The center used a traditional Snail's Trail/Monkey Wrench block.  I had a lot of fun with the batiks and bright prints I chose from stash back then.    

For the Bookshelf quilt, I'm using only the cat body portion.  I lengthened the body to better fit my shelf size. 

Pretty batiks from stash for the body, and black background pieces for the shelves. 

Two friendly cats that sewed up very quickly. 

My vinyl-backed tablecloth design wall is working great for this project.  

Placed on the shelf, the cats looked a little plain.  While I could not add the snail's trail for only two cats, I drew a tail to applique on. 

These two batiks are options for the tail fabric, however the proportion of the tail is not quite right.  I think it needs to be longer and maybe intertwine or touch in the center--that would be fun.  I sent a pic to my niece and she said she loved the cats.  I'm next going to try to make an easel for the cherry embroidery, add a coffee cup or wine glass, maybe a vase or plant.  So much fun to decorate the shelves. Maybe the cats will sit on a couple of books...