Sunday, June 19, 2011

Fleece Basket Woven Pet Bed


I made this bed for my sister's cat a few months ago.... It's a nice dense bed that is made of rope and excess fleece strips.

Here's what you need:
- Rope,... I used a 3/8" size rope bundle (not sure what the length was).
- lots of fleece strips.
- a crochet hook helps to push the fleece strip thru holes.

Here's what to do:

1.  Start off by wrapping the rope with one end of fleece starting about 4 inches from the end of the rope, wrapping towards the end of the rope.  When you reach the end, fold the end piece over towards the already wrapped area and wrap both ropes together a couple of times around.


2.  Roll the wrapped rope around and wrap again by inserting the fleece strip into the circle formed by the fold and wrapping in around the rope. Wrap around the rope once, and then thru a hole in the previous row (first few times it will be the circle formed by the fold)  and around the rope once.  Continue in this manner going around forming a disc.  You may need to wrap thru the same hole twice.


3.  When you reach the size of the bottom of the bed that you desire, you'll continue to wrap the next rows as usual, but you will wrap the rope in the position just above the previous row (basically, building upwards instead out outwards).  Continue wrapping til you reach your desired height (or you run out or rope).



4.  To end, continue wrapping the fleece around the top row til you reach the end of the fleece strip, then just thread the fleece around til you've hidden all the of the fleece.

Notes:
Changing fleece strips - To change fleece strips, just wrap the end of the 1st fleece strip along with the rope with the new fleece strip.

Unfortunately, my sister's cat was too big for the bed.  Maybe it can be a fleece fruit basket instead. (kidding)

Monday, June 13, 2011

My Container Garden

Just a quick post to show you guys my container garden.  This year, I decided to put my vegetable garden all in pots that I had sitting around. (I apparently have a lot of pots).  This is due to a few reasons.  1.  Our in-ground garden has been covered by weeds in the last few years.  I wanted to give that garden a year off to do some more intense weed killer spraying and hopefully get rid of the weeds before planting in there again.  2.  We have been talking about expanding the garden, and decided that it would be tougher to do so if we had the veggies all there.  3.  I wanted to see if a container garden would succeed once the plants grew bigger.  4.  I wanted more control over the soil.

So, anyway, yup... container garden.

Here are some pictures:

cucumber, tomatoes, green beans

green beans again, chives, endives, spinach.
 In the back are basil and strawberries.

yet to be planted in another place: cantaloupe and watermelon.
(there's also brussel sprouts, but I don't think they're gonna make it)

here's a better picture of the spinach, endives, chives, basil
and way in the back strawberries

here are my peppers (jalapeno, green bell, orange bell) and eggplants.

my tall beef steak tomato plant is doing the best.
 I'm trying to keep up on its pruning.
Overall, the garden seems to be doing well.  We've already had a few snail attacks, but that would have happened more so with an in-ground garden.  I like that I can sprinkle snail pellets all over the ground and know that it's not getting in the pots/food.

Hope your garden is doing well too.