So, Mr. Fluff son from across the street just mocked your Mittens for not being fashionable enough and tipped his top hat while enjoying his afternoon tea before you could say anything? What a snob, right? But you needn’t worry, for we have the fanciest solution for you. What else can make your cat more formally prepared than the all-time classic bow tie? Why, nothing, of course! Staying in trend is becoming harder and harder for the ordinary cat nowadays, as not all of them has the time (nor the dedication) to tackle the diversity of their attire.
• What we need and how will they be used
So it’s up to you, the owner, to pump it up a notch! Today we’ll be making a bow tie for our very own Mittens and we hope he’ll like it just as much as we do. We’ll need a pair of scissors, an iron and a board, some thread and needles, (or maybe a sewing machine), Velcro and a safety pin. Also, we’ll need this pattern:
Just so you can make sure the pattern you printed was sized correctly:
• one piece 1.75 x 12 inches
• one piece 2 x 5 inches
• two pieces 2.5 x 3.5 inches
• Getting to work!
The longest piece will need to be with one of the shorter edges on a fold. If you have a cat with a collar, you can also skip making the collar and just make the bow. We need to pin the two bow pieces right sides together and then stitch around using a ¼ seam allowance. Then, we need to leave a 2 inch wide hole on one of the long edges of the bow. After this, we go about trimming the corners and edges, but leaving the edge with the hole exactly as it is. Then, we turn the bow right side out and use a small crochet hook to get nice and pointy corners. Fold in the edges of the hole so that it looks nice and then iron it flat. You will find that this is particularly useful later on. Now just sew all around the edges and close the hole up. Now all we have to do is fold the other pieces in half and pin, sew them and then stitch them. Time for some pointy action.
We push a safety pin through one side of the material near one end of the tube and then push it into the tube. We then scrunch the material onto the safety pin, pulling the edges toward where the safety pin went in. Keep scrunching and pulling until the fabric begins turning. Once this is done, we can finally get to the easier parts of the project. It’s time to iron the tubes flat so that the seam is on the back of the tubes, scrunch the bow up, take the smaller of the two tubes and place it around the middle and adjust it so that you find the shape you like for the bow and trim off all the excess. After that, sew the tube ends together with the seam facing out, turn the tube right side out and slip over the bow.
Now it’s time to do some good old hand sewing. We hand sew the bow onto the collar using small stitches. This might be tricky, but keep working on it and be careful not to sew your fingers to the collar. Finally, add the Velcro and we’re done!
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