One of the first shopping trips to search for wool sweaters yielded a large creamy shetland wool sweater made by Columbia.  There was this little tag on the sleeve that said “Convert.”  I thought that quite an apt label.

After washing this particular sweater it shrank a lot and was quite thick. I wasn’t sure what to do with it.  Then I thought it would make a great kitty bed for our little Pye kitty.  Her crochet mat has kind of been claimed by Sam, our large siamese, so I thought she’d like a new one for the living room.

Here’s how the process went…

First I cut apart felted sweater at the seams and cut away the thick felted seams.

Then I found Pye asleep on the back of the couch and measured around her then transfer the tape measure to the back piece to make the bottom of the bed.  I enlarged the circle about an inch to give some ease.  She is very much a “cinnamon bun” type of cat, so a circle works well for her.

If I made one for Sam it would be much more oval, he is much more a “loaf” laying kitty.

Then I needed to cut the sides.  I used the bottom edge of each piece, front and back, and a second length from the middle.  I used my long quilting ruler and rotary cutter to make sure I had nice straight lines.  I needed 2 whole pieces and about 3/4 of the 3rd piece to go around the mat.