Although it would be nice to crochet a custom lining for each round basket I find, sometimes I just fold an old towel in half and toss it over. This works great for Izzy, but for seven-month-old Thor, it is too tempting.
Photo description: Gray tabby behind an upturned round basket with a towel spilled out.
To keep the towel in place and not subject to kitten wiles, I sewed together the ends of a piece of wide elastic to make a stretchy band that goes around the towel and basket.
Photo description: Same basket, same towel, but with a two inch elastic strap around the circumference, holding the towel in the basket.
The securing of the towel meets with both cat’s approval.
Photo description: Gray tabby cat filling up the towel lined basket, looking at the cameraPhoto description: Calico cat sitting in the same basket, later.
In my opinion the basket is a little small, but the cats like it cozy. Yes, they are about the same size now, and Thor is still growing.
One of the sling beds in the catio gave up under the weight of the kitten and popped its grommet. I removed the rest, it has lasted awhile, and puzzled over a replacement. The two sections of 1 x4” wood that I screwed to the catio supports seemed about the size of a pillow case. It turned out it was a little wider, but with a quick seam and a couple of snipped holes, I converted an old pillow case into a cat sling bed that slides over two parallel boards.
Photo description: Gray tabby sitting in the hammock made with a repurposed green cotton pillowcase suspended by two boards
Cotton does degrade in the sun, but this might be a better design idea than grommets in the corners screwed to the board. I’ll see of the cats use this setup, and if they do, replace the cotton with outdoor resistant fabric.
We store our broom and swiffer in our laundry closet and they are constantly falling over or getting in the way. I had a spare curtain rod, so decided to try installing it on the wall at an angle to corral the long handles. Works great!
As much as I love cloth bags, sometimes you need packaging you can see through that is inexpensive. For my spinning starter kits I needed a long narrow plastic bag. I have a whole bundle of large clear plastic bags, but they are twice as wide as I needed for this application. I found that if I ran my quilting mini iron, set to high, down the center of the bags, it was enough to melt and separate the bag into two, with a well sealed seam. The iron does come with a blade attachment, but the blade cut the plastic too fast and didn’t heat the plastic up enough to melt it.
Photo description: Cork squares laid down on the table to protect the surface, two newly created long narrow plastic bags, with a mini iron to the side, blade assembly unused.Photo description: Same table with one bag filled with a spindle and three samples of different animal fibers.Photo description: Two completed Spinning starter packs, with insert containing instructions and resources.
I tied off my bags with some of my old hand-spun yarn oddments. Another good use for left-over yarn!
Did you know that microwaves and wifi use a similar radio frequency? I do now. The way our house is set up, the microwave faces the point of entry for our internet connection, which is where the router lives. Not always, but enough to be irritating, when we run the microwave, the wifi glitches. Moving either is not an option. The router has a dual channel at 5Ghz, and we still experience interference (this is in response to articles like this one that suggesting moving or upgrading.) I have been experimenting with options for awhile. A cookie sheet put in front of the microwave isn’t very effective, by the way. We had the idea of using a fireplace curtain as a kind of Faraday cage, or really a wall. It is an awkward space, so a trip to the hardware store was in order to source parts for a rod, since a traditional rod for fireplaces wouldn’t work. I found pretty copper bell pipe clamps!
Photo description: Copper bell pipe clamp mounted to the underside of the countertop
I also found steel rod. Unfortunately the smallest pipe clamp was 1/2” and the rod is 5/16”. Rubber spacers to the rescue.
Photo description: In the foreground, a rubber ring wedged onto the end of a steel rod.
I started with just one curtain, since it would fit nicely to the side of the microwave when not in use. I tested, but at home alone in the morning, I couldn’t replicate the conditions (TV worked fine, even live streaming).
Photo description: fireplace curtain mounted in front of our microwave in a dedicated alcove built in to the base cupboards.
When it was evening, and everyone was drawing bandwidth and the football game was on the main screen, I did another test. Bingo. No loss of signal for the game. However, my youngest still reported her iPad and hearing aids, which connect with Bluetooth, glitched. I installed the second curtain, which makes the setup more bulky, but effectively makes the mesh holes smaller since they aren’t fully open. That did the trick.
Photo description: Two fireplace curtains mounted on the same rod.
Critters and Craft 