Crochet Cat Nest
Earlier this month we took a vacation to Vero Beach. Since its only an hour and a half away (or about two when Mike drives!) I decided this would be the perfect time to start on my monthly crochet project. And I thought this would be the perfect time to work on a project for Tom that I've been wanting to work on for a while now.
If you can recall from when I made Tom a cat house, he's our outdoor cat (whose main job is to scare away snakes with his scent!) In the time since I made his cat house, it has disappeared. (Mike moved it so that kids would stop messing with it and I'm not quite sure where it ended up) and he didn't get to use it as much as I would have liked. Instead Tom has taken over our old wicker patio table as his house. (I secretly love that my cat upcycles too! Okay I know he's a cat and he'll take over anything... especially if there's a towel involved!)
So I decided for this month's crochet project to make that old wicker table a little more cat sleeping friendly.
The Project
Crochet Cat Nest
instructions from Handy DIY
and Diamond Trellis Basket
instructions from Make My Day Creative
Results
For this project I decided to use Bernat Blanket Yarn (in Mallard Wood because I wanted a masculine looking yarn for Tom). Its really soft and fluffy and I knew it would be perfect to make a bed for Tom. And the first couple of times I tried making this, I tried using a smaller hook than suggested and well, it didn't work. It was really bumpy on the outside and I had to restart a couple of times. So I guess Bernat knows what they are talking about and you should use an 8mm crochet hook for this yarn.
Making the cat nest was no problem. After running into a couple of errors on our way to Vero Beach, I finally got into a good rhythm on our way home.
And by the middle of our second road trip I was mostly done with the cat nest.
Infact the main issue I had with making the cat nest was that I ran out of yarn when I was about 3/4ths of the way through. And the color yarn I picked out wasn't available in store at Joann Fabrics (its apparently only available online.) So to finish the project, I had to take a special trip to Michael's to pick up another skein.
(And yes the best time to crochet is while both kids are sleeping... even if one is just down the couch from me!)
After I got another skein I quickly finished Tom's cat nest.
And Tom promptly took it over. I don't think he's been inside yet, but that's okay. I made him the cat nest really for the option that he could use the inside if he wanted. (He's not really a cat that likes to be enclosed).
Since I was mostly done with the cat nest, I still had a lot of the second skein leftover once I was done. So I decided to make Tom another bed. For this bed, I decided to modify Esther Chandler's Diamond Trellis Basket.
I knew that I wasn't going to have enough yarn to make the whole basket, so I adjusted the pattern slightly so that I was able to make the base wide enough for Tom to fit in and still have enough yarn to make the basket at least one row high.
So after I was about half way through the amount of rows Chandler recommends for to make her basket, I started judging how much yarn I had left (so I would know if I should make another ring or if I should start working on the basket wall)
And naturally Tom had to be there to over see how everything was going!
Overall I was able to make it through round 10 before I decided I couldn't make another round. I've actually made this basket before, so I like to add an extra round in there. I simple replace the double crochet round in the front stitch only with a single crochet in the front stitch only and then make a round of double crochet on top of it. I find that its easier to not only find the posts, but my basket doesn't pull in as much at the bottom. (I'll explain better in a different project coming up!)
Anyway I was able to complete one row on the basket and then I added an extra row of single crochets in every stitch to give the edges a finished looked.
So I may not have gotten the full trellis look of the originial pattern, but I think it still turned out nicely. And I still had a little yarn left over, so I just tied it into a bow!
Easy peasy and Tom likes his second sleeping spot as much as his first!
and naturally as soon as I wanted a picture of him using it, he 's only using the bottom one... so I'll post a picture of Tom on the top as soon as I can!
