Cats and Mice Patchwork Block

Cats and Mice 6" Block

I will be blogging about the Farmer's Wife blocks 13 and 14 later in the week.  For now I want to concentrate on an upcoming block and provide an easier alternative to paper-piecing this tricky-little-sucker!

The Cats and Mice block is a traditional patchwork block that dates back to the end of the 19^th century. You may first encounter it in Laurie Hird’s excellent Farmer’s Wife Sampler Quilt book as it is block 17 in that compendium of traditional blocks.

Whilst Laurie's book includes templates to hand-stitch the block, if you are thinking of paper-piecing it my advice would be DON’T DO IT!  I paper-pieced three versions and I wasn’t pleased with any of them. There is a much simpler way to create this block and that is patch it – in which case you will be wanting my

FREE CATS AND MICE BLOCK PATTERN

Give it a whirl and let me know how you get on by tagging me in your block photos over on Instagram (@thepatchsmith).

Until next time ...................