Rainbow Kitties Take the Throne: A Pop Art Quilt fit for a Queen

This was such a fun request. The recipient, a second grader, wanted a quilt that reflected her main interests: rainbows and kitties. So we settled on The Kittens quilt pattern, by Elizabeth Hartman, each kitty in a different color. The parent of this young recipient said, “She says no pink, but I say a little pink.”

Is there Magenta? Maybe... Fuchsia? Check. Salmon? Sure! But I wouldn’t say there’s PINK. So, everybody’s happy.

This custom quilt adventure transported me into the technicolor worlds of both Lisa Frank and Takashi Murakami, and then I turned it all the way up to eleven. Let’s dive in to the full spectrum of feline fabulousness.

From Superflat to Sticker Books: the Art Icons behind this quilt

Time for a deep dive on artistic inspiration! With the bold colors, the mechanical repetition, and the artful elevation of the quotidian, what we’re looking at here is another POP ART aesthetic quilt.

My very first candidate for quilt muse was Andy Warhol, of course. A grid of 30 kittens, each in a different color? Very Marilyn Monroe, very Campbell’s soup cans. Did you know that Andy Warhol even made a book called 25 Cats Named Sam and One Blue Pussy? He was apparently a cat person, and I can definitely respect that.

from 25 Cats Named Sam, Andy Warhol, 1954

But I decided to go ever so slightly off the beaten pop path and pick Takashi Murakami as my artist inspiration here. His work explores the intersection of high art and pop culture, filtered through a kawaii, acid-bright lens. Murakami coined the term “Superflat” to describe his art concept, and while I don’t fully understand its facets, his style is highly recognizable and as such, a hot commodity. And commodifying and merchandising it is part and parcel of the whole concept.

Even if this quilt’s young recipient has never heard Murakami’s name, she would probably recognize his most famous works, including the Flowers series. Much like our kitties, these colorful flowers are almost TOO cute, staring at you with their identical inscrutable eyes. This quilt’s queen has almost certainly seen the music video for Billie Eilish’s royally evocative song, You Should See Me in a Crown, which Murakami animated, incorporating some of his other works in various ways throughout.

Flowers Flowers Flowers, Takashi Murakami, 2010, from *Artspace*

Just like Murakami’s flowers, our rainbow kitties are radiating joyful, but weird, and chaotically cute energy.

On the flip side of the pop/art coin, sitting farther towards the pop culture side of the bench, we’ve got Lisa Frank, queen of rainbow surrealism and fantastical maximalism. If you ever had a Trapper Keeper covered in airbrushed kittens floating through a technicolor galaxy, you already know the vibe. This quilt taps into that same over-the-top energy: a full spectrum of candy-colored cats, each block like a sticker waiting to be peeled and placed just right. It’s nostalgic (for me, not the young recipient) and fully committed to the idea that more is more.

This quilt was made in a dreamy headspace between Murakami’s proper high art pop surrealism and Lisa Frank’s glittery rainbow sticker books and stationery packs. Together, they embody the joyful, colorful chaos of a second grader’s world.

the Purr-fect Pattern, courtesy of Elizabeth Hartman

Choosing Elizabeth Hartman’s Kittens quilt pattern for this project was the easiest decision ever. As famous for her cute, cartoonish style as she is for her tricky blocks requiring many tiny pieces, Elizabeth Hartman is a master of traditionally pieced animal characters that feel consistently POP and modern.

What I love about the Kittens pattern is the four distinct characters that she has created with such simple, graphic variations. While she has a plain cat option, she also has a sampler option. We chose to create four cat characters (yes, they have names!), Chrissy, Bacon Bits, Daisy, and Mr. Snuggles, from 30 different fabrics. There is even an optional applique to give some of the cats a pair of stylish glasses! But we opted out of that.

Rainbow Kitty - La Bizarra Custom Rainbow Quilt - Handmade Patchwork, Raleigh, North Carolina — I had the assistance of an actual cat during the design process. For authenticity.

Fabric Choices: a Full Rainbow Riot

To assemble the cat army, each one needed its own uniform. I wanted a super saturated, bright hue in a blender fabric (a print that reads mostly as a solid color from a distance) for each of these 30 babies, and luckily mine was the perfect fabric stash to pull from. Bright and saturated are my bread and butter.

I leaned into every shade of the rainbow, and tried my best to represent every letter of ROY G BIV equally. With 30 cats that meant approximately 4 shades per color, with the extra shares going towards chartreuse (my favorite!) because it’s neither green nor yellow, and yet it’s absolutely necessary. Electric blue, radioactive lime, cherry red, banana yellow, acid purple. If it’s included in Lisa Frank’s leopard print, it’s got a spot reserved in this quilt.

Alison Glass, Giucy Giuce, Tula Pink, Elizabeth Hartman, and Lizzy House were some of the fabric designers most represented in this quilt. Their bold, saturated blenders hit just the right note to let the kitty faces sing (meow).

I used a soft gray scattered flower print from the First Light collection from Ruby Star Society as the background; totally neutral, but also a total party.

Custom Details that put the kitties on a pedestal

The pattern had to be adjusted just slightly at the borders in order to get this quilt to queen size, but the royal recipient shall have the size she desires. We could have simply added extra cats as well, creating maybe a 7 by 7 grid of cats, but that would have increased the amount of piecing work on cat blocks that would drape off the sides of the mattress anyway. So visually, expanding the borders and keeping the main show within the dimensions of a standard mattress was preferable.

I had the quilt professionally longarmed by Chris at Sweet Pea Threads Quilting, so it was no problem to get that amazing Pyrex stem design onto those kitties, giving them a quirky retro vibe, that evoked domesticity and comfort in addition to a bit of mid-mod aesthetic.

And that gorgeous backing fabric is an aqua Tula Pink cotton-sateen wideback with circular rainbows from her collection Daydreamer. There’s also a pink option, but I avoided that for the sake of Queen No Pink. The print is also featured in a smaller motif on one of the yellow kittens. I love tying the back of the quilt to the front whenever I can to give it a cohesive look, even when it’s turned down at the top, or folded over on an unmade bed.

The only real problem with a queen size quilt, as far as I am concerned is that it’s really unwieldy to take a full photograph of it. I typically take photos solo, where I hold the quilt and use a tripod and remote to take the photo. For a queen size, I required two friends to assist, and a tall surface for us to stand on.

custom queen size quilt with rainbow kitties, full shot in front of agate wall

The Royal Reviews Are In!

It got full marks from the queen herself, who hath declared aqua to be Her Color, so smart choice on that backing.

And, finally, a photo of this radiant beauty in its new home, its natural habitat on the Rainbow Kitty Queen’s bed. You all know I LOVE seeing photos of the quilts I make in their natural habitats. I say it all the time, and I’ve seen a few fun ones pop up lately. These absolutely make my day, how could they not?