It appears that lovely though our new lounge floor is, our cat does not approve. She refuses to sleep on the floor anymore and wanders around looking for something soft to sit on. She has even taken to sitting on the sofa, which she never used to do.
I decided to make her a cushion for her to sleep on downstairs, so she can join us in the evenings, as she often wants to do. I decided to make her cushion out of a fleece jacket she claimed a while ago. The fleece jacket is too big for me but as it is very good quality material I could never bring myself to get rid of it. My cat claimed it one day when it was put down and then tried to sleep on it whenever possible. I let her keep it, but it looks too scruffy for our new lounge, not to mention it carries the risk of scratching our nice new floor with the zippers. So I finally got round to changing a jacket into a cat cushion.
First I cut off the sleeves and removed the side seams, leaving the hemmed cuffs on. I sewed the sleeves together down the long side and squared the edges as much as possible.. I then cut out the back, again removing the side seams. I made the cut out fleece as square as possible, leaving the bottom hem intact. I sewed the back to the square made with the sleeves to that the hem edges were at opposite ends of the fabric.
I then folded the right sides together and stitched down the long sides with the hemmed edges overlapping, like a pillowcase.
I apologise for the quality of the photo but you can see the seams from the sleeves and back and also the flap, even if it isn't in focus!
I then folded in half some cream poly-cotton fabric and lay the pillow on top and drew round the pillow to provide a template for an inner cushion. I sewed up the sides and part way across the top, leaving a hand size gap in the seams. I then pressed open the top seam and turned the pillow inside out to have the right side facing. Taking some toy stuffing I very loosely stuffed the pillow, so it was around 1" thick all over and then ladder stitched the seam that had been left open.
I sewed on a press stud to keep the fleece cushion closed as the cat moved around on it.
I placed the pillow inside the fleece, closed the press stud and laid the new cushion down for the cat to find this evening.
I hope after all this trouble, she actually uses it! She can be quite contrary sometimes. If she does use it, at least it look much neater than the screwed up jacket that she used to use, and the fleece cover can easily be taken off to launder. If she actually does use it I will try to get a photo, though she will be camouflaged quite well, being a black cat.
