There's a Tiger In My Tub!!!

It seems that Tessie is not a very good provider. This morning Zar found Theo in his bathtub, fast asleep like Goldilocks, only without the bears. Theo has been sleeping there regularly, since Tessie didn't think to make him a bed at her cottage. Poor little tiger.

Zar was raising such a fuss. He wanted his bathtub back. He was planning to finish the bathroom today, or at least get more done.

I decided to swing into action and make Theo a cat bed. After all, he is just a big cat. That reminds me. I need to talk to Tessie about putting a "permanent cub" spell on him. I certainly don't want an adult tiger running around eating everything and everyone in sight!

I sat Theo on a scrap of 1/8" thick basswood. By doing that, I could see that he would fit in a bed about 2 1/4" long and 1 3/4" wide. I drew out the measurements on the scrap and rounded the corners. A penny was handy for that. You could make the bed any size and shape you wanted, to fit whatever animal you have just by doing the above steps.

I didn't feel like dragging out the jigsaw just for one piece, so I used my handy dandy jeweler's saw. Jeweler's saws are great for intricate cutting and handy when you are lazy and don't want to set up the large saw. It took about two minutes to cut it out.

I sanded the edges and then drew around the piece and made two of the same thing on card stock. I cut them just a hair smaller than the base. One will be covered and go on the bottom to finish and the other one will be padded for the bedding and stuck inside. I also cut a long strip of card stock that was 5/6" wide. This will be the sides of the bed. I stretched this piece around the bed and determined how much of the front I wanted to leave open.

Here you can see the outside half(face down) covered and glued around the edges. It is ready to have the fabric folded down over and glued. Then I trimmed it even with the ends and the bottom edge.

I glued a scrap of fabric around the base where I wanted the opening to be. Then I glued the covered strip around the base. That takes care of covering the rest of the base.

The piece in front is the one that I stuck on the bottom just to make it look neat and it also gives a good base on which to stick the bead feet. You need four.

Next I padded the other piece of card stock with high loft quilt batting and then wrapped and glued my fabric around that. I tufted it in two spots. I did that by using a double length of thread and sewing through all layers twice. On the second pass I made a french knot on the top surface. That is optional. It makes the tufting look like there is a button there.

I glued four 1/8" beads on the bottom and glued the pad in the top.

Theo is now the envy of all. No more sleeping in the cold tub.

I am off to do more cleaning on the real house now. Monday seems to be a good day to get things done.

See you tomorrow.