Sewing for the cat

I think this is the first time I've written about our pets here, I guess because I try to keep the focus of my blog on craft. But finally I have an excuse as I made our cat Olly a new bed last weekend.

Based loosely on this tutorial, it was a great Sunday afternoon project, lots of fun and producing something useful at the end, hooray!

I used stash fabrics: an Ikea printed cotton for the sides (a little joke there as he loves birds, hmm) and then my latest 'fabric crushes': velvet and hessian (burlap). I hoped he'd find the velvet irresistible to lay on, and the hessian would add a little grip and durability.

It's a clever construction idea from the tutorial: a long tube is made which is sewn onto the outside perimeter of the base layers, sandwiching in all layers but leaving a gap for stuffing. I pulled apart an old pillow that was flat and out of shape, using handfuls of the fluff to stuff the base and then the sides before sewing the gap closed. I did consider using bias binding to neaten the edge but decided just to serge it - after all it is not seen when in use. I'm hoping the whole thing can be thrown into the washing machine to clean it - this is one fluffy cat.

I've not been a fan of cat beds in the past - I find cats just sleep wherever they want rather than where you'd like them to sleep, but this cat was in need. He'd taken to sleeping on our bed recently, and not just on our bed but right next to me all snuggled up. Each evening he sits in the lounge room and waits for me to go to bed, then follows me down the corridor and snuggles in. You see I think poor Olly is grieving... our lovely old cat Sausage passed away last month :-( It was quite sudden and we've all been sad. The house feels quiet and empty without him squealing for food and jumping up to meet our hands on the way to pat him ;-)

The Mr reckons cats don't grieve but I'm not so sure - Olly's certainly a lot more sooky than he's ever been at the moment. They were buddies from the start when, as a baby, Olly came to live with us in our new home 10 years ago. Back then it was just me, the Mr and Sausage. These are my favourite photos of them together.

Just imagine me in Sausage's place in the above pic :-) Being spooned by him is cute but not so good for sleep - especially when one or two little people often join us at different stages through the night too!

I'm hoping to get some of my space back on the bed now that he's taken to his new bed, which we keep on the box at the end of our bed. Ah, who knew that as a mum you'd have to play amateur cat psychologist too :-)

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