I love to sew. When i was a little girl, my grandmother taught me how to sew by hand with me sitting on her lap. I loved having her show me what to do, so i would pretend that i didn't get it so she would show me again and again. I believe she finally caught on because she told me to just do it and left the room! Well when it came time for me to sew with a sewing machine, she was no longer with us. But with her watching in heaven, i threaded my machine, pinned my pattern to my fabric, made my first stitches, took out my first stitches, untangled the thread from my machine, threaded my machine again, replaced a broken needle....well, you can see where this is going. But i pretended that she was there, showing me what to do and i could almost hear her soothing voice calmly telling me the next step.
I finally felt ready follow a pattern, so i bought Amy Butler's, In Stitches. I decided to try the cat tunnel first. Well let me just say it only LOOKED easy! The written directions and the drawings did not match up and i don't think either were right. I followed both the printed and written and ended up with something no cat would enter into if it valued any of it's 9 lives. So i put the pattern away and made up my own little version: This is my cat tunnel! ...que music...
I used Amy Butler fabric (maybe so i wouldn't feel so bad for not using the pattern in the book) and fake fur fabric. I wanted the tunnel to remain open, so i took wire and put it in between the two fabric pieces so you can't feel it in there, but it does its job of keeping it open. Now, the cats did enjoy this for a little while, but as you can see in the pictures of the cat casually walking past the cat tunnel, they are over it. But i have hope! I keep spraying it with cat nip spray so hopefully they will venture back into it! AND i did see some cat hair in the tunnel so i KNOW they have been in there! So maybe the cat nip spray is working!
So if you try the cat tunnel pattern in Amy Butler's book, In Stitches, just know that the directions are not correct and she does have corrections on her web site that i didn't find out about until i made my version. Good luck!
Next week: My attempt of Amy Butler's lounge pants
