Cat Quilt - First Finish for 2013

So I had my first finish for 2013 yesterday. It is a very small quilt, made for my cats!! Yeah, yeah I know, but better they get their furry fur on this one that I can chuck in the was, than other things which are a much bigger pain to wash! And I figure I put this near the sewing machine and they sleep on that rather than what I am trying to work on. I also chose this one as I am really trying to finish off some of my UFO's especially the smaller ones, now that I am giving machine quilting a go.

This is Miss Cleopatra (Cleo) using the finished product.

Below is Miss Hatshepsut (Hattie) helping me with blocking the quilt. Normally, I don't block my quilts, but this one uses blocks which were my very first attempt at machine piecing, so there was some interesting results. Also, this has been sitting in the UFO pile for so long it was pretty dusty and stinky (as was the batting off cuts used) that it was gonna get a wash anyway.

So, after washing, I pinned it to my cardboard cutting mat, which is actually perfect for this, since it has the grids for aligning and gives me something to push the pins into! I would worry about the damp damaging it, but after spin drying and the hot temperature, it didn't stay wet for long.

So here is the finished product. The quilting is a bit dodgy, I was in a rush and the blocks weren't exactly in perfect alignment (although blocking it did the world of good in getting it squared up). It is actually alot squarer than it looks, it was given a good test drive before I could get a photo, so a few creases. The similar blocks are ones I made and the alternate ones are some that I received in various 9 Patch swaps, 6" blocks.