Quilts and Pets: A Match Made in Heaven

I need to make more pet quilts. They're small, quick and easy, and our furry friends are very forgiving about mistakes. And while they may not ooh and ahh over your choice of $12/yard designer fabric, they'll love it because it was made by you.

I discovered Tacy Gray, a quilt designer, who had eight tips for making a quilt for a pet. In essence, she suggests keeping it simple, skipping the binding, and pretty much just steaming through it. I like her style.

I've made a few quilts for the pets in my life, in fact pet quilts were part of the prescription cocktail that got me through the pandemic in 2020. They were all inspired by a quilt that my friend Judy made for my dog Abby when we first brought her home from the rescue. 

Apparently, Judy was making these patchwork quilts for anyone who adopts a rescue dog. When she found out we were getting Abby, she called me and asked, "What's her favorite color?"

"Um, green?" 

Ten years later and this quilt is now Abby's car quilt, keeping her cozy and comfy in her back seat and saving our car interior. Isn't it cute? 

Fast forward to 2020 when I was churning out quilts and I decided to pay it forward to some pets in my life. 

I made this rag strip quilt for my daughter's cat, Cat, who is living with us until her birth mother can find an apartment that allows cats. 

I had a fun, colorful jellyroll and decided to try my hand at a rag seam. Thinking Cat would love the rough and scrumbly quilt, I powered through fluffing all those seams until I had blisters on my fingers and then nearly killed my dryer (a dryer's death by lint is not an easy thing to watch), only to find that Cat prefers the smooth back of the quilt. Eye roll. Here is Miss Thang herself.

For my son and his husband's sphynx, I went for smooth. I had just finished Tula Pink's City Sampler quilt and I had some favorite blocks that I wanted to repeat. So I designed this quilt for Luna, the hairless cat, who has very sensitive skin . . . as you can imagine . . . 

I used fabric scraps I had lying around and some very cute fabric of cats wearing glasses. Here is Luna, enjoying not so much the quilt, but the box it came in. 

If this isn't a creature that needs a quilt, I don't know what is. 

That same Christmas, I made this little quilt for Hugo, a French Bulldog near and dear to my heart. I had fabric with little Frenchies on it and some blenders in colors that perfectly fit Hugo's personality. 

Here's Hugo, at one of our dinner parties. 

We do so much for our cats and dogs, it seems only fitting that there should be quilts around them. Let me know if you'd like a scrumbly or smooth quilt for your pet. 

🦆

To learn more about these quilts and Diane's other quilting projects, contact her at diane.fitzpatrick@mac.com. And check out her Instagram page.