Amazon has been distributing non-woven gift bags for awhile now, and I have amassed a collection. I do reuse them, many times, and to organize them I sorted by size (which is conveniently color coordinated) and used one bag of the group to hold the others. That way, at a glance, I can tell about how much the bags inside will hold.
Happy Thanksgiving y’all. If you blink, you’ll miss it.
Two years ago I fixed a plastic knob that broke. The thin gauge copper wire snapped recently and the epoxy didn’t hold, so I have to fix it again. I’m not messing around this time. I used 18 gauge wire to wrap around the socket, then filled the surround with J-B Weld, which is a two part epoxy.
It worked. Now I am hoping to get another couple years out of the appliance.
Each summer I put up a sunscreen in the coop runs to keep the afternoon sun off the feeder and the side of the coop. Each winter I take it down so the sun can warm the coop. Both operations are a pain, wrestling with the large triangle of fabric. Until this year, when one of those slow ideas finally bubbled to the surface and I thought to just roll up the sunscreen. It took a few moments to secure the roll, but should only take a few moments again in the summer to deploy the screen.
I do believe that there are many ways to accomplish any task, and find it interesting how often the thought “why didn’t I think of that earlier” happens.
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.
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.
The securing of the towel meets with both cat’s approval.
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.
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.
Critters and Craft 