Tag: sew

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DIY: Giant Valentine’s Cat Toy Round-Up

How cute are these?!  Here are heaps & heaps of Valentine’s Day DIY projects for your cat.  Be sure to add some catnip to their stuffing.  All of these patterns are free.  But don’t be a tool and use patterns to make things to sell if the author asks you not to.  And please support the people providing all these patterns if they have etsy shops, stores, books, or patterns for sale.  These people totally rock for providing these patterns for free!

 

Row 1

  1. knitted & felted hearts
  2. more knitted & felted hearts also available in German and French
  3. crocheted heart

Row 2

  1. hand-sewn felt hearts
  2. crocheted cupcake (I would leave off the beads)
  3. hand-sewn felt cupcake (I would avoid using glue and sew everything, if you do use glue make sure it’s non-toxic)

Row 3

  1. knitted cupcakes 
  2. knitted chocolates
  3. crocheted chocolates

Row 4

  1. hand-sewn felt chocolates & heart box
  2. knitted strawberries
  3. crocheted strawberries

Row 5

  1. hand-sewn felt strawberries
  2. crocheted rose with leaves
  3. knitted rose with leaves
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DIY: 6 Dog Coats & Sweaters Round-Up

Last week’s post on the DIY Dog Rain Coat got me to thinking about all the other DIY dog coats & sweaters I’ve written about.  Here are a bunch of tutorials on how to make your dog her own coat—everything from upcycling to sewing to knitting to even weaving.

Cardigan Coat

 

 

Dog Raincoat from Old Jacket (for people) with pattern

 

 

Woven Coat with pattern

 

 

Oil Cloth Coat with 2 patterns

 

 

Sock Sweater

 

 

2 Different Sweaters to Knit

 

 

Though it’s not a tutorial, this is a great idea! Check out these super cool coats made out of broken umbrellas created by Taryn Zychal.

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DIY: Oilcloth Dog Coat

Cute coat!   Check out this great tutorial for a canine rain coat using oil cloth—the vinyl coated material used to make tablecloths, tote bags, etc.  Oil cloth is waterproof, easy to clean, and now comes great patterns.

Heather, of Heatherly Loves, used an old dog coat as a pattern to cut out pieces from some oil cloth she had left over from another project.  She used left-over knit fabric to line the coat, but knit can be fussy to sew.  I would either not line the coat or would use flannel or light fleece.  The result is a very functional, thrifty rain coat that looks really cute.  I like that the belly strap is further back, though you’ll want to be sure a male dog won’t get pee on it.  Saffron still shakes herself off even when wearing a coat and it always leaves the end of her coat flipped up.  Having the strap further back might keep this from happening.

If you need it, here is a dog coat pattern that also covers the underside of a dog.  This second pattern can be printed out and taped together.  Need to custom fit a pattern?  Check out this tutorial for customizing a pattern to your dog’s measurements.  Finally, if you have left-over oil cloth, you can make a matching, foldable travel bowl for your pup.

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DIY: Over 30 Different Cat Toys To Sew, Knit, Crochet, or Assemble

Here are a ton of DIY cat toys!  One of my pet peeves (groan!) is ugly pet toys .  I like them to be colorful, cute, and/or funny, and the easiest way to achieve that is to make your own.  The great thing about DIY cat toys is they take very little fabric, yarn, etc. and they’re usually quick to make.  All of the toys below will make nice gifts for kitties and their people.  Have fun!

Adorable hearts, cupcakes, strawberries, roses, & chocolates.


Kitty fortune cookies.

 

No-sew feathers and fish.

 

 

Suede mouse.

 

 

Beautiful birdies.

 

 

Easy to sew mouse, fish, & sausage.

 

 

Supper fuzzy mouse.

 

Adorable sushi—nigiri & futomaki.

 

 

Feather spinner toy & wand.

 

 

Felt bird, mouse, & fish.

 

Cute mice, olives, & owls.

 

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DIY: Distance Logging Via GPS Dog Collar

Dear Internet, I freakin’ love you!  Through you I find fascinating people, learn cool things, and find neato-keen projects.  This geeky, crafty, cool dog collar has all three things going for it.  Yea!

Check out this nifty DIY dog collar project.  You get to solder AND sew!  Please note:  This collar is not for finding your lost dog because the collar doesn’t have a transmitter.  It is meant to track you & your dog’s progress & distance on walks.  You can map your walks or if you have a large property you can see where your dog spends her time by downloading the GPS data from her collar at the end of the day.

Here are the supplies and tools you’ll need.  Ladyada also has detailed information on the code & wiring used in the project.  And there’s a pdf of all the tutorial.  When you purchase from Adafruit Industries you help support open-source hardware.

The tutorial is by Limor Fried aka ladyada.  Limor is an MIT educated electrical engineer and owner of Adafruit Industries, supplier of parts & designer of kits for DIY electronics projects.  She’s an big advocate for open-source hardware.

Her user-name, ladyada, is a reference to Lady Ada Lovelace, a super cool woman in her own right.  Ada Lovelace was a mathematician, writer & translator in the mid 1800’s.  She’s widely attributed with writing the first “computer program”.  Awesome stuff!

 

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