A Disco Kitty Followed Me Home: Tabby Road by Tula Pink for FreeSpirit Fabrics

I don't normally post about fabric collections.  I don't do any advertising or sponsorships, and I'm not trying to sell you anything.  But I'm totally smitten with Tula Pink's Tabby Road collection for FreeSpirit Fabrics, especially the Disco Kitty and Cat Snacks prints.

Tula Pink's Tabby Road Collection for FreeSpirit Fabrics

Most of you know that we're dog people at my house (Rottweillers are for snuggling.  And for singing), but I have several friends who are cat lovers and these fabrics are just PERFECT for one of my friends in particular, so never mind the yards and yards of hoarded fabric in my studio; never mind that I STILL have not finished organizing what I already have.  I HAVE TO HAVE this Tabby Road fabric, so I ordered it online and while I await its arrival in my mailbox, I played around with some design ideas in EQ7.

Priscilla Blocks

Meh, right?  My first idea was Priscilla blocks, shown above.  I really like how the stripes and dots work with those blocks.  But it feels too busy with so many prints.  If I do something like that, I'm going to need to use some coordinating solids to break up the prints.  But I'm going to wait for my Tabby Road fabrics to arrive first and then match up some solids -- maybe even some from my stash!

After spending way too much time playing with Priscilla blocks, I wanted to see whether a simpler quilt might better showcase these fun novelty prints.  So then I came up with this idea:

I Like This Better!

Those octagons have 2" sides and they are nearly 9 3/4" across, so they would be great for showcasing the kitty prints.  And despite the large pieces, it wouldn't be a total bore to piece this quilt because of all the lovely Y-seams.  Yes, I know I could simplify construction by making on-point snowball blocks instead, but then I'd have seams through the middle of my 4" squares and that would bug me until the end of time.

One more idea -- what if I chopped this collection up into 4" finished clamshells using the Accuquilt GO! Baby die cutter that I got for Christmas?

Tabby Road 4" Clam Shells

That would be cute, and I'm not afraid of the curved piecing, but there are SO MANY of them and I'm looking for something that goes together a bit faster.  Accuquilt does make an 8" finished clam shell die that would be really good for this collection, but I don't have that die (it's not compatible with the GO! Baby cutter, anyway -- only the regular GO! and the Studio GO! cutters).  So it's either 4" clam shells that I could cut out fairly quickly but would take an eternity to piece together, or else I have to print myself a larger tagboard template that I can trace onto my fabric and cut out all of my clamshells with a SCISSORS!  Talk about Old School versus New School! 

I don't know.  I have no business starting a new project right now anyway, with so many works-in-progress and so few FINISHED projects to show for myself.  I'll see how I feel about it once the fabric shows up.

Oh goodness -- How is it 11:06 PM already?!!  Goodnight!  I'm linking up with Needle and Thread Thursday at http://www.myquiltinfatuation.blogspot.com/.