Cats, both fabric and real

I received a little goody in the mail yesterday, so I wanted to show it and the rest of its coordinating fabrics. This will be a Linus quilt.

I found the large cat and bluebird print first, on the sale rack of my local quilt shop. I loved it, so I picked up 2 yards, figuring it would be a good backing for a child's quilt. A few months later I ran into the panel print of the same cat, also on sale, so that was added to the stack. Then, last week, I found the blue and purple bird footprints fabric on sale at an online store. I pulled out some purple and yellow, and a plaid for the binding, and there's the collection. But I still don't know what pattern to use. Any suggestions?

I was thinking of cutting the panel print into strips and using them for the border, but it would only make four strips, and that's 148 inches. I would need about 200 inches to circle a crib size quilt. Or, I could cut out the panels and use them as the centers for pieced blocks, but they're rectangular, so that's awkward. I'm just stumped.

On to the real cat: Molly saw a tuxedo cat outside on the patio last night. I was at my desk and she was lying in the hall doorway. Suddenly she rushed through the den and charged up to the door, chittering and twitching all over! Her tail was about six inches in diameter and every bit of the fur on her back was up. She kept pacing in front of the sliding door, making those weird chittery noises, so I got up to see what she was so upset about. The cat was standing at the bottom of the stairs, calmly watching Molly go to pieces. It seemed to think that Molly's antics were amusing - certainly not scary.

It was a good-sized tuxedo cat, very cute, that I've seen once before outside. I have no idea where it belongs. When I came up to the glass, it got nervous and left, but not in a scared way, it just sauntered off. Definitely not a basket case like my Molly. She didn't calm down for a while, just kept looking out the door trying to spot the interloper.

I'm not sure when she last saw another cat - it might have been years. I tried to tell her that her three sisters and mom live together in harmony, so other cats are OK, but she seemed to respond, "Harmony, schmarmony, that guy's in MY YARD!"