More and more these days I find myself embracing my cat-lady status.  Cat art all over my walls?  Check.  Consistently covered in cat hair?  Check.  Talking strangers’ ears off about Chowder and Maxine?  Check.  I’ve even written some cat poems, which I think is probably the worst offense of all.

So, after completing my first stuffed cat last night before bed (just in time for my niece’s party tomorrow!), I didn’t hesitate before starting on my second stuffed cat this afternoon.  I wasn’t really satistfied with how lumpy the finished product was, so this time I lined the entire pillow with muslin for a (hopefully) much sturdier stuffed animal.  (I’ll be using the terms pillow and stuffed animal interchangibly, since I can’t decide which one fits better.)  To make the lining, I sandwiched a gray striped tank top (right sides together) between two pieces of muslin and pinned everything in place so that I had a layer of muslin, two layers of gray jersey, and then another layer of muslin.  I then folded the whole thing in half (hot dog style), drew the outline of half a cat face, and then cut it all out in the same way I would a paper heart, leaving a 1/2″ seam allowance.  Then I unfolded it so that it actually looked like a cat face and sewed all the way around, stopping after each ear so that when turned right side out there’s a 6″ to 7″ gap at the top of the head.  This easily accomodates my embroidery hoop and leaves plenty of room for me to work on embroidering the sleepy and awake faces on the front and back.  I’m hoping that the top of the head will be a less conspicuous place to sew the whole thing up once stuffed, since I wasn’t happy with the way it looked on the chin of the previous cat.  So far, all I’ve completed are the sleepy eyes.  I’ll probably be working on this one at a much more leisurely pace since I’m not dealing with a deadline, and the next week of school promises to be busier than this one was (at least I’m not counting on two more sleet days, but who knows?).

Now that I’ve seen this photographed, I’ll admit I think I was subconsciously inspired, at least as far as the head shape and color palette are concerned, by these adorable Kitty-Cat paper dolls I saw on ModernCat yesterday.  So sweet!