For Christmas I decided to crochet my mum a cat cave for her cat Puddy.

cat cave
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I made my mum a cat cave for Christmas

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!

dyeing shirts
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haphazardly throwing old dye at old shirts
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I was surprised how vibrant they turned out!

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.

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Cutting yarn

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!

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I broke a hook halfway through and had to make a mad dash to pick up more sturdy aluminum hooks!
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Even before Christmas 2019, the air quality in Canberra was often hazardous or at least poor. On days like this, I shut myself in the bedroom, my little pedestal fan blowing full force whilst watching Netflix.
crochet cat cave
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I love how it turned out!

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

Up-cycled cat cave
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