Homemade Cat Bed

Wow, what a weekend. Not sure how the Queen managed to keep going through all the festivites and the functions she attended. (which quite frankly, seemed to go on forever.) Just seeing her stood on that boat for hours in a dress coat and flimsy little scarf made me feel cold and I was in a nice warm room, merrily sewing a Union Jack flag from vintage fabrics to alleviate the boredom!

Anyway, I had a spare Friday about three weeks ago where I decided I would just have a little go at decorating the charity shop cat basket I bought for £3.50. Now, Gerard had not really been anywhere near this basket and my husband and kids quite rightly pointed out that a bit of bunting with his name on was highly unlikely to persuade him to sit in it. But I had in my mind how I wanted the basket to be as it is going to look pretty in our kitchen once it's all finished.

So I spent a couple of hours snipping into my favourite vintage fabrics and making a little row of flags, which I embroidered with floss - a letter for each flag - you might just be able to see in the above photo. Then I set to work on a round crochet blanket, the pattern for which I found on this blog. Alice is a very clever lady for producing such a clear and easy to follow tutorial for this mandala, perfect for round blankets, cushions and pot holders. Raymond the cat is super cute too!

Of course I went straight to my stash of Stylecraft yarns to make this blanket and chose colours to match the colours of accessories in my kitchen.

This is a Joseph Joseph glass worktop saver that I bought a short while ago, which we have been using mainly as a bread board. Luckily I had some very similar colours which match very well. All in all I had a fun day making this and was really chuffed with the end result. Shame Gerard still hasn't sat in the basket though! Ungrateful cat. :)

This project reminded me of something I made back in February when it was extremely cold. I found a pattern for a granny rectangle (can't remember from where, I googled it though if that's any help) and used some Stylecraft yarn to match the colours of the curtains in F's bedroom.

This was really quick to make - once you get the first two rows done, it's just like making a big granny square. Once it was done, I put it in place on the windowsill...

... where Gerard promptly jumped up and sat down. We have tiled windowsills in our house which get icy cold in winter (see the snow in the garden outside) and Gerard loves to sit on the sill and watch the world go by. He was very pleased to have a nice warm and comfy place to sit whilst watching the girls having a snowball fight outside.

And seeing as I don't have a photo of Gerard in his basket, here is one of him on next door's chimney, annoying a magpie! It's mainly bungalows down our road so he has lots of fun jumping up onto the roofs and getting a good view into the distance.

Will be back soon with news of charity shop bargains, new garden furniture and a growing blanket. x