I’ve been trying to use dumbbells lately (mostly as wrist supports for pushups), and I find I don’t want to touch them because they are cold and a little rusted, so I made handles for em.
They work! These are just a slightly off-square quilted piece with velcro sewn into the corners. Fully machine washable for when they inevitably become gross, and a helpful mini test of some quilting material I got (there’s a thin strip of cotton batting in each one.
In August, one of my Daily Things was cat pants. My mom converted some sweats to shorts, and I hemmed up the other sides of the cutoff legs to make tubes. My mom got a fancy new sewing machine with all kinds of crazy stitches, so that added some fun to the project.
I am going completely bonkers, though, because Mr Bun has been playing with the cat pant for WEEKS now, and I still can’t get a good picture of him in action. One day soon!
I took some time off going out of town a couple of weekends in a row, but I still got a few things done, which I’m finally documenting. Here is a proof of concept, about 5 inches on a side, of a new cat bed I’m making.
The final piece will have fleece on the inside and wool on the outside, be circular, and will have quilting on the bottom side, but I wanted to piece it together and figure out how I would finish all the seams before I actually cut into the fabric (which is pretty nice). Before I sewed this, I sketched it on paper and then pieced one together with tape and napkins, and those exercises were very helpful. This little fabric piece came together in about 5 minutes and disproved a concern I had about how I should pattern it, so it was both very satisfying and genuinely helpful.
Mr Bun stuck his head into it but declined to be photographed.
Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories has tutorials on just the kinds of things I like to make. This time it’s the cat quilt. My cat’s never seen a fish, and for some reason I thought sewing a circle would be hard after my lumpy catnip-toy experience, so I decided to be clever and do a children’s book cover. I suspect my cat at least saw a mouse when he was living under a porch before I took him home, so I chose Frederick, the art for which lends itself very well to the appliqué technique used in the EMSL project. (I used the catnip-toy fabric for the back.)
It wasn’t until I was actually sitting down at the sewing machine that I realized I’d set myself up for a crash course in sewing on a curve. I think I did OK, although I’m starting to see why quilters like having fancy anti-pucker features in their machines. And if my cat could just pull himself away from the cat chaise, we might see what he thinks of his new quilt.
So far so good on www.thing-a-day.com this year. Mr Bun is not thrilled about my new sewing machine, so today’s thing is for him.
This particular thing is made of silly Valentine’s Day fabric from the remnants bin (I know, hard to believe!), stuffed with batting with a fragrant catnip center. I felt a bit bad about my sloppy hemming – I have a lot to learn about sewing (machine and manual) on a curve. Did he like it anyway?
Oh yeah.
I’m doing Thing-a-day this year. Here my first thing cowers as Mr Bun peeks out the window.
This particular thing is made of felt, buttons, and polyester batting, and is inspired by this: www.geist.com/comix – Thanks, Eve Corbel!