Cat bed cozies

You saw two of these five cat (or dog) bed blankets a few months back. I think they make an interesting color statement as a set, so I’m including my first two attempts along with the three newer ones. My bed blankets are inspired by Donna Druchunas’s Garter Stitch Cat Shelter Blanket pattern.

I’ve knit mine in 100% wool–totally impractical for shelters. And maybe some will decide that they’re also impractical for households. From what I hear, cats don’t agree. Now that I think more about it, cats probably just don’t care about practical. If it feels cozy and a bit scratchy, they want it. As for practicality, I recommend the cats’ humans just wash the blankets and put them in the dryer when they need to be cleaned. I knit them somewhat oversized. The blankets will felt and the cats will still like them.

I’ve knit mine in Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted.

More on my modifications of the pattern in a quick bit. These color studies turned out to be great fun to knit.

Here this pair is awaiting their test run.

Halo approves.

Feisty does too.


Lucy votes “yes.”

In fact, she even managed to co-op her housemate Jasmine’s blanket for awhile.

Here are my modifications to the Druchunas pattern.

  • Instead of working the blanket at a superbulky weight of 2 stitches to the inch, I used a worsted weight at 4 stitches (and 8 rows) to the inch.
  • For Squares 1-3, I cast on (or picked up) 48 stitches and worked for 48 ridges (96 rows).
  • I worked a few random rows of color, not so much because I planned it as that I thought I would run out of yarn otherwise.
  • For the final square, I worked a miter. I picked up (and knit) 48 stitches on the left side of Square 3 and 48 on the top of Square 1 and marked the middle stitch. Stitches are always picked up looking at the right (the public) side. Work on circular needles on this square. Count the pick-up row as Row 1. Row 2, knit. Then on every right-side row: knit to within 2 stitches of the center marker, K2 together. Slip the marker. Reverse the next stitch on the needle and then K2 together through the back loops (including the flipped stitch and the next one). Knit the remainder of the row. Decrease this way at the center of every right-side row. Knit every wrong-side row without any decreases. When 2 stitches remain, knit them together. You end up with a square the same size as the other squares.
  • I worked an “applied I-cord” border.  Cast on 4 stitches on double points. Start working the I-cord at a corner. Slide the stitches and knit 3 stitches, slip the next stitch (purlwise), yarn over, pick up and knit 1 stitch from the edge. Pass the yarn-over over the picked-up stitch. Then pass the slipped stitch over the picked-up stitch. Repeat the bolded directions until you’ve knit the entire border. The yarn-over trick covers the color blip that would otherwise appear. I picked up one stitch for every garter ridge, picking up the strand between the garter bumps. It will probably look best if you work the I-cord looking at the wrong (nonpublic) side. I worked an extra pickup or two at each corner. Graft/sew the beginning of the I-cord to the end of it.

Peerie Flooers Heid

What to call this, without being a total toot-your-own-horn. The bees’ knees. The cat’s meow. The greatest thing since sliced bread. All toot-your-own-horns so I’ll just call it what it is: Kate Davies Peerie Flooers hat pattern from her book Millarrochy Heids. I didn’t buy the entire book. The patterns are individually downloadable on Ravelry and I purchased only Peerie Flooers.  I’d bought a Blackberry Ridge fingering weight yarn pack kitted for Peerie Flooers at the Minnesota Knitters Guild 2019 Yarn Over event. I was game to try it but I wasn’t sure I’d be likely to knit more of the 15 fingering weight fair isle hats included in Davies’s book.

The yarn. The colors. The pattern. It all came together and I ended up with this.

“Heid” is Scots for hats. And I’ve assumed that peerie flooers means small flowers because it sounds like that’s what it would be and it felt like I was knitting little flowers.

I’m a sucker for a great crown decrease section. This one may be among the best I’ve been able to pull off.  Usually when I post about knitting hats I include a whole selection of them. That’s because I knit a lot of hats. But I decided this heid needed a post all its own.