DIY hook-and-loop cable wraps

I used to use twist ties to bundle my cords, until I got a cat who has an unhealthy obsession with them. Zip ties are another option, but you'd better be pretty sure of where you want them. Strips of hook-and-loop tape are a nice alternative, and require no tools to remove if it turns out you didn't put them in the right place the first time.

You can get big packs or rolls of the ready-made ones (Velcro or Panduit brands, for example) for a price that usually isn't very beatable compared to retail hook-and-loop tape. But the color selection readily available around here, or online and selling to Canada, seems to be mostly limited to black. That's fine for some of my cords, but there are others where I'd rather have something close to ivory or beige, to match the cord and draw less attention to it.

Well, Dressew had a sale bin of packs of 1yd loop and 1/2yd hook tape for 25 cents. They had white and pastels only, because these were evidently marketed for babies, and there aren't many goth babies, I guess. For my purposes, I found I could get 8 reasonably-sized wraps from a pack. This actually is a good deal compared to the ready-mades. They do happen to be wider than necessary, but at that price it doesn't bother me.

You just cut a piece of hook, a piece of loop, overlap them a bit (let's say 3/8-1/2") with wrong sides together, sew (I settled on a three-step zigzag), and you're done. It's best to place the loop side against the feed dogs, because otherwise the thread may catch on the hook side as the needle comes up, and that makes a mess.

The "sticking" area of these may be less than it is with some of the ready-made ones, but I find it's more than enough. They also aren't quite as flat as the ready-mades, obviously, since there are the two pieces being overlapped, but I suppose they could be butted together against some kind of softer backing material if that's a concern. Personally, I didn't care enough to bother.

These will make my light-colored cords much less of an eyesore. I'll probably still buy ready-made wraps for the rest.

Tea towels, for actual tea

I've again become sidetracked with knitting; this time it's to replace my sorry old kitchen towels. In ready-mades I was looking for something really specific, so unsurprisingly, it doesn't seem to exist: medium to dark colours; busy patterns without too much white in them; and thick fabric—the last seems pretty hard to find these days, at any price. One of my main uses for these is mopping up tea or colorful ingredients, but a lot of what I could find was thin, solid-coloured pastels that would get very noticeably stained on first use. I guess you could bleach them, but then you never quite know what color might result.

Well, two balls of Bernat Handicrafter will make a decent-sized towel for less than $3, when it's on sale. I got many different colors in an attempt to tie together all the miscellaneous colors in my kitchen; if I don't make myself thoroughly sick of this I could end up with 12 towels, which should pretty well replace what I've got. Here's one in Indigo and Lime Stripes.

It's a Purl Soho pattern that I downscaled, in both senses; you're meant to use Euroflax linen, which is lovely, but will make a thinner towel at a significantly higher price. It seems to me that linen yarn is less absorbent, somehow, too—is it the smoother surface, or just the fact that it's never spun as thick? Most importantly, they'd take a lot longer to knit as intended. Maybe someday.

Cat tunnel

The idea here was to copy this ready-made cat tunnel, but in a sturdier fabric and colors that match the room better.

The original tunnel is a tube about 33" in circumference and 27 1/2" in length. I cut a rectangle of my base fabric for this size plus seam allowances, then pinned it around the existing tunnel and chalk-marked the placement of the wire casing that spirals around.

It got a little more complicated when I decided to add leaf appliques. At first I was thinking of doing catnip leaves, until I looked up what those are shaped like... nope, way too many little serrations. I decided on matatabi/silver vine instead—a simple heart-ish shape is a decent approximation, and my iridescent fabric at least hints at the silvery leaves. (Well, I gather that it really should be cross-dyed green and white, not green and purple, but when I get to tell fabric manufacturers what colors they should make, that'll be the day.)

I drew a template and cut out 20 of those, made up a placement, and satin-stitched on all the ones that could be attached with the base fabric still flat. For that I used some variegated green-and-white thread that was just sitting around being useless in my stash. Then I sewed up the tube (using a French seam, like the original) and finally added the last few leaves that needed to go over that seam. 

For the spiral wire casing I used a bias strip of the contrast fabric, and for the end casings I used strips of the base fabric on the straight grain. There are also three tubing ties made of the contrast fabric around one edge, so the tunnel can be collapsed and tied flat, and another piece of tubing on the opposite end that holds a jingly bell toy (on the original tunnel it's a piece of red braid). Those are each caught into the end wire casings.

Lastly, the tunnel needs a wire inserted into the spiral and end casings. I had a hard time getting a good springy wire; the best I was able to find was 14 gauge galvanized wire that doesn't have enough bounce to keep the tunnel straight. I'm guessing what I need might be spring steel, but given the size of the rolls I'm finding, plus the fact that I don't know for sure it is what I want, it might end up being cheaper just to buy more of these cat tunnel(s) to take their wires. (I'd thought I might have to cannibalize the original tunnel for its wire connectors anyway, but I'm hesitating to do that now that I've mended it—it doesn't have those falling-off casings and sticking-out wires anymore.)

Anyway, the new tunnel has been getting some cat approval even in its current sad-sack state, so I might leave both tunnels alone for the time being.

Machine covers

I've made two quilted machine covers out of a couple packs of 5x5 squares I got at the fabric shop on Granville Island a while back. (The other one is just a standard-issue plastic Janome cover.) I did need a few extra squares, which I cut out of plain muslin.

They're a bit oversized, part of the idea being that maybe they'd fit other machines if these ever need replacing. The layers (basic poly batting and cotton muslin being the others) are tied together with bits of embroidery floss, besides which the squares have been sewn to the batting along the seams.

I'm satisfied with them, but also happy to be done—I don't ever expect to become much of a quilter, since I enjoy garment sewing a lot more.