Finished Projects 3: Cat Towels

I think my friend Wendy gave me this metre or so of cream towelling (from her oddments bin, she used to have a childrenswear business and I've had a lot of good sized offcuts that weren't big enough for her to make a kids garment from, but I can use for my purposes). I know mum gave me the turquoise bias binding (a roll a good 10cm across). And as usual, I've had both for years.

The cat, as you all know is a fairly new addition, he arrived in May 2009, and much prefers being outside, in all weathers, so he can be quite grubby when he eventually deigns to come in. He's also a creature of habit and very slow to accept new things. And I only have one towel that I can use to rub him down and as a mat to catch muddy paws by the catflap.

All of which led to today's finished project - cat towels, two thereof, approx 30"x20" (as that's the size of the halflanding area giving access to the back door), so it can be used as a washable door mat and/or a rubdown towel if Ivor's very grubby - and hopefully even a straightjacket if we continue having trouble with the tablets. And be easily identifiable by all as a cat towel and not for human use.

He is actually asleep in the headshot above, but his eye doesn't ever close properly on that side, so he looks a bit like he's giving the evils, but he's not!

He's got a bladder infection, was in the vet's overnight last week then came home with 2 different tablets and some powder to take at each meal, and is supposed to be moving onto prescription food.

Being slightly semi-feral he's not keen on being held, so he gets very stressed if you even try to hold him preparatory to manhandling his mouth open and pushing in tablets he doesn't like the taste of... I've tried slitting open chunks of cat food, surrounding them with cheese of various sorts and also the directly down the mouth route. The chunks of cat food and cheese attempts mostly result in him spitting half the tablets around the kitchen (I had a pony once who used to lick the brussel sprouts leaves in his bran mash and then spit them out, all nice & clean - Ivor's a bit like that with his tablets). The directly down the mouth route has resulted in him spitting half the tablets around the kitchen. Same result, but more distress all round, so we're not doing that again for a while, and anyway need any towel to smell of him to even be able to get hold of him.

The technique I've not tried is mashing the tablet up with butter and smearing it on his foot. It might work for clean cats, but Ivor doesn't always wash his feet immediately they are grubby and I'm not sure I can face cleaning up the mess if he doesn't...

Mum has suggested sild or sardines in oil, as these have a strong taste and are already slit to hide the tablets in - so that's what we'll be trying tonight, especially as I don't think he took any of this mornings tablets, just the powder...

So, the finished project:

I cut the towelling into 20"x30" blocks (for two towels) and laboriously pinned the bias binding over the edges of one - and utterly failed to reliably sew it together. So I cut all the sewn bits off, and straightened the edges (couldn't unpick as the binding is quite loosely woven as is the towelling) and starting again, instead pinned one open edge of the binding to the edge of the towelling, and sewed it down, then wrapped the rest over to the other side, and then sewed everything together from that other side. Which more or less worked on the first one, but was much neater on the second one.

So, the original cat towel is in the wash, and the only reason Ivor was prepared to tolerate the towel being gently laid over him for the pics was I suspect drug induced lethargy as a result of his post breakfast marauding outside for an hour or so before he came in and collapsed wearily on the floor. (The towel was actually laid over him to get it smelling of him, in the vain hope he'll accept me using it on him next time it rains/ need some tablet manhandling).

Ivor Cat 5

This is Ivor's new wicker double storey bed, which is an early Christmas present for me (not him obviously that would be silly). It's taken him a while but he likes it when it's raining and I've got the back door open, presumably as it's less draughty but gives an equally good view as his major tripping hazard normal bed at the top of the stairs...

The black furry rat remains intact despite the regular pummelling (thanks for that mum, it's soft all throught so it doesn't matter if I accidentally beat him up with it when playing)

Ivor 4: cat flap and straw bed

Well it's quite a while since I posted - I've been tied up with the Tour de France and jobhunting and clutter clearing and projectfinishing. None of which has included any cardmaking - and there's a growing list of people I owe cards to (Happy Birthday everyone!) so there'll have to be soon.

Anyway, the cat is the subject of this post. Yes he's a boy, and he's now called Ivor. He's just about made friends with the othered neutered cat from a couple of doors down (C's cat), but not at all with the unneutered stray and I have the vet bills to prove it! He had a bit of a reaction to his cat flu jab, but he's generally super healthy and fine. And the great thing is he's now got a fine crop of hair on his ears (they were bald when he arrived), and we've not been to the vet for three whole weeks (whoo hooo!!).

So now Ivor's staying for good, it's time to think about the future, specifically how is it going to pan out when I'm back at work and out of the house a lot? And what about when I go away?
The going away thankfully is easy, there's a couple of neighbours willing to look after him, so as long as it's not for too long or too frequent, it should work out quite well.

As for the being at work, Ivor is happy in the house (and no messes of any sort) but really likes being outside. He's none too bothered by rain but seriously dislikes thunder and hailstones. I can't be bothered with litter trays - there's a large garden for that. So, I thought cat flap time. And luckily the back door which is ancient and solid had a patch where a flap had been previously. In retrospect I should have reminded my landlord he'd said I could have a cat flap and shown him the patch before I fitted it, because his initial reaction wasn't great, but he's got over it now! and I kept the original patch wood so it can be put back in when I leave....

We couldn't have a cheap 'open to all' flap because the unneutered tom sometimes comes in looking for food, and much as I love C's cat, he's developed a habit of ambling in and out of the house too, which makes Ivor a bit stressed. And because C's cat has a magnetic cat flap, we had to have an infrared one to exclude all comers except Ivor. This was my very first ever piece of diy using a power drill - and apart from the comedy moment when I thought I'd got the wrong sort of drill bit so went to the mechanics over the road to ask their advice and found I was trying to drill in reverse (drills have reverse?!! what for? you can't undrill a hole by going backwards!) it went quite well... Although I think dad could have done without the long series of 'ok i've done that, what now' phonecalls (he's such a star).

Ivor took to the catflap 'pegged up pretending to be just a hole in the door' stage really quickly. He was much less keen on the 'pretending to be a hole but with the collar on and working' stage, as he really dislikes the loud click of the mechanism, but just about coped. When we moved to the 'you have to push the flap with your head' stage he was very unhappy and tried to use his paws instead. However a couple of days ago I put him outside when I went out, and when I got back, he'd made it inside all by himself. And last night he made it outside and back inside several times - although it was quite noisy and took him a while as he backs off when the mechanism clicks and then locks himself out a few times by hesitating and using his paws, and the flap ended up effectively 'open to all' because he made it through at a different point in the infrared mechanism cycle than the designers envisaged. Nevertheless, mission more or less accomplished!

Then, as a friend at work was so concerned about Ivor's welfare outside, I beefed up the straw box. What's a straw box? well it's a cardboard box with straw in it, put in the lee of the shed so if it gets cold/ rainy Ivor can be outside but not roughing it. Except it wasn't great because I'd balanced it on an huge round plant saucer and every so often it fell off (probably when he was getting in or out) and tipped up. And I think that cats who sleep on hay or straw smell much nicer than cats who don't - the smell hangs around on them.
So I have made a deluxe cat straw box - it's a very sturdy box about the same size as a large cat carrier, closed on top, has two entrances (so he can escape if anyone challenges him) and is set on an upturned wooden fruit box. And to make it all safer, I've tied the cardboard box to the wooden box so it won't tip up like the old one did. And being Ivor he took one look at it and cleared off! It's a bit 'Heath Robinson', but it'll keep the weather off him if the catflap stops working for any reason. And this pic is of the box in situ in the shed entrance (actually it's the entrance to the old outside loo which has had concrete put down it rather than actually being taken out (nice!) and I use it for my garden tools. I couldn't put a cat flap in the shed door (which would have been the best result) as the door's metal - and I don't have the skills, and didn't want to have to put a new door on.....

Anyway, we're all fixed and all I need now is a job!

Ivy 3 - or is that the rightname?

Well!

The new cat's been limping for 3 days, I thought it might be arthiritis so I kept her in at night for 3 nights, then realised that one of her catfight cuts on her right fore leg seemed to be a bit hot, lumpy and dark looking: fearing an abcess I thought I'd better get her checked out.

So I phoned the cat shelter who also run a vet clinic, and bought a cat carrier (only £10) and made an appointment for the afternoon.

I managed to entice her into the cat box by using a combination of catmint and nibbles, and after a worrying few minutes when she tried to dig her way out, all went well. We arrived way too early for the appointment, but that was good as they were running early anyway.

The good news is that it's a very healthy cat, apart from the festering cut for which antibiotics have been dispensed; the bad news is, well not bad, so much as embarrassing, she's not a girl cat at all, she's a neutered boy cat!!!!!

I am sooooo embarrassed!! I was a bit worried that it'd turn out to be pregnant and have sudden kittens all over the house. So that's fine! It does explain why it's been so feisty and managed to get so beaten up/ do so much beating up of the neighbourhood cats though.

I did think the rear end looked a little odd for a girl (I didn't look very closely but it looked like 2 holes to me, a bit far apart with small furry bumps in between that didn't look quite right for a girl, but there you go!), but it turns out I'm not the only one that gets it wrong, the vet (perhaps he was just trying to make me feel better) said a lot of people make the same mistake, especially if they don't realise the cat is neutered, but he also said that the 'jowls' give it away - I felt like saying I've got jowls and I'm a girl, but I thought I'd better not!!!!

So, the question is, can I continue to call him Ivy????? Or is it going to cause huge confusion at the vet? Is Ivy really a feminine name/ plant?

Ivy 2

Bizarrely the cat stayed. Even though it was barely a week or so after she arrived before I went away for a week and a friend fed her (he obviously has the magic touch!). She's cute, she's flea free and getting more playful by the day - but not exactly the smallest cat ever. I am going to have to buy a cat carrier and get her to a vet for checking out though.

And I'm calling her Ivy as she is so clingy. She will be the death of me on the stairs....

The cat I stole (maybe, maybe she just chose me)

A cat arrived in my house on Friday (my first day of freedom and unemployment whooo hoo) - I was having a siesta and was woken up by her chewing her way into the GoCat nibbles - now that serves me right for falling asleep with the back door open. Anyway I've been inadvertantly feeding her (as well as another stray of the same colour but with white socks for a few weeks).

Bizarrely this cat just ambled back in after I'd fed her and has barely moved since. She just follows me around the house & garden and I can hear her whingeing through the night as I've put her out.

I've followed Celia Hammond Cat Sanctuary advice (she's not on their Lost List) and put a collar with my number on in case she ever goes home, and will put up posters as she's so well behaved she's obviously a much loved pet and I don't want to steal her!

Eventually if she stays she'll need a name - Ivy because she's so clingy? any suggestions?

365 Cards - Day 42 - Stampin' Saturday

Today's challenge is to stamp up the background paper yourself. Right up my street I thought, until I realised that I don't really have any stamps that aren't Easter or Christmas, except the flower ones I've already used.

So, I picked this Hampton Art Stamps Sketched Cat one up today in Hobbycraft's clearance for under £1 (see Day 37, I went for Chipboard to decorate, but they didn't have any undecorated, so I bought lots of other stuff instead...) A good bargain I think.

I used the rest of the orange acrylic decorated cartridge paper left over from my Day 37 card, and Versacolour's Magenta, Peony & Brown. I'm an huge fan of their small inkpads, they give a really good colour at a good low price, but they take ages and ages to dry. Pretty much my cardstock is 5"x5" or 5"x7", so I can get two cards plus some scraps out of a single sheet of A4 pre-coloured paper. There's enough scraps for another card, so this colourway/ image may yet appear again...

In the end I waited a couple of hours, then blasted with the hairdrier, but still smudged it a bit when mounting it onto the cardstock. Luckily it's a smudgy kind of stamp; so as long as no-one looks too carefully, I'lll get away with it.

What I want to know though is how long it normally takes these inks to dry and how can you speed it up so that it doesn't smudge?

Maybe the answer is to colour and stamp up a vast range of papers ready for every possible challenge the DT sets us so that they'll be dry in time?

There's a theme to my cards, I'm doing each daily challenge (sometimes a day or so behind) from whatever papers I've got out on my table, which is why you get a run of them all using the same papers/ inks/ images etc. Eventually, I'll end up with a stack of cards and an empty stash... (except today's Hobbycraft extravaganza more or less filled up the spaces I'd made so far sigh)

Now then, next week is going to be a REAL challenge - starting tomorrow it's Scor-It week - which is a board & tool system for making lines in cardstock who are sponsoring the 365 Cards Blog - apart from the chance to win a Scor-It, it'll be very interesting seeing how scoring can be used creatively. We're assured you can do all the challenges with a bone folder, so bone folder at the ready: I'm not convinced it's going to be easy, but it will be interesting, and I suspect we're going to learn a lot!