For Christmas I decided to crochet my mum a cat cave for her cat Puddy.
I had a bunch of white shirts printed with promotional material, and a bunch of old dye that needed using or tossing. So I haphazardly threw the dye on the shirts. I was impressed how vibrant they came out! Some of the dye had been sitting mixed up for over a year!
After the shirts were washed and dried, i cut them all into yarn. I cut the fabric to about an inch to an inch and a half wide. A slight pull to the strips as you wind them into a ball kinda makes them curl in on themselves and makes them easy to work with. I wrote a whole tutorial on making t-shirt yarn which can be found here.
I didn’t quite have enough dyed shirts, so I made the base from other plain coloured t shirts I had in my stash.
The base is a crochet circle, increasing every row to make sure it sits flat.
Then a couple of rounds without any increasing to start the sides.
You’ll need to decide where and how big an opening you would like, then start turning to crochet back, instead of crocheting in the round.
Continue like this until you are happy with the height of your opening. Count the amount of stitches you left when creating your opening. Chain this many to cross the gap so you can continue crocheting in the round.
A few more rows of straight crochet, then start decreasing. You could decrease so it comes in flat, or domed, but I decided I wanted to make the top a feature and did a kind of tail. Some fringed pieces on the end give the cat something to play with!
I hope Puddy likes it! It was super fun to make!
I’m currently at home for another week. Guy requested I not work this week with the air quality being crappy and me being sick over Christmas with bronchitis. Usually I would of argued this with him, but I’m getting too tired to argue lol. I have a few projects to work on, but mostly just resting up!
There has been some great initiatives for crafters to support the animals harmed in the current bush fires. If you’d like to help, check out this Facebook page.
Stay safe everyone! The summer has only just begun!
<3 Cate
Hi! I can’t even tell you how much I love this! I’m a beginner crocheter (if that is even a word). I have mastered circles however. I don’t own a cat but my sister has 4 rescues and fosters for a large rescue. I’m thinking I would like to use our old T-shirt’s and make a few of these as a fund raiser for the rescue. Can you tell me how to make the point? I’m confused as to the difference between making the circles smaller for a flat look verses the point. Any help is appreciated. Kim
Hi Kim,
Honestly I’m terrible at keeping circles flat, so I’m sorry if this doesn’t make sense, but when crocheting a circle you need to increase every round, and also increasing the number of stitches in between increase stitches, then to go “up” and keep it straight, you just crochet with no increases or decreases. To make a “point” you decrease quickly.
I hope that helps.
Cate
Wow!!! I absolutely LOVE this! I can’t wait to try and get started! Going to be busy though…..got 5 cats ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️
Hi Cate!!!!…. can you tell me how many T-shirts you used?
Magaly
I don’t have cats but I do have a 7#dog who loves to snuggle. I think I will make one for her, I hope the cats don’t mind.
Hello Cate. Love the cat cave! I, too, would like to know how many t shirts (or metreage) you used, please.
Hi!
It was quite a while since I made this project, so exact numbers escape me. I want to say I used 12 adult sized tshirts cut into aprox 1 – 1.5 inches wide. Thats a rough estimate
What did you use to keep the door open and the top from collapsing? Thank you.
Hi!
For me personally, my tension was tight enough to keep it from collapsing. That was until I gifted it, and it appears over time and with use it definitely needs some reinforcement. I haven’t revisited this project yet, but since its so popular I think I will have to. I plan to try and use some wire around the opening.
I just got done making this adorable cat cave. My door ended up being slouchy too. I fed a coat hanger wire through the already existing stitches in the top of the door. and then chain stitched the wire to the sides of the door. Yay! It worked perfectly.
Awesome to hear! Glad you found a solution to the slouching! I mean to redo this post to address this issue!
You could try using cereal box cardboard cut to the height needed and insert around the inside of the cave.
Your cat cave is absolutely stunning!!! I made one but had to undo it because it was too wide and floppy.. I’m sure youre tips will help me get it right Thanks!
Hello. Love your cat cave! I tried making one but the T-shirt material I used I think was too heavy and it didn’t stand up easily. Any suggestions on keeping the structure from falling in on itself? Thank you, Pam
Hi Pam,
Some have had luck threading a wire coat hanger through the stitches surrounding the opening.
Hope this helps.
Cate