Catnip Birdies and Lavender Bags

Today I have been making things for my daughter Meg to take to a craft fair in February. I found a really cute bird template which I am going to fill with lavender but I decided that for my prototype, I would make one filled with catnip for the cats to play with (I always make one as a prototype to see if it needs any tweaking). It turned out ok but it definitely needs a little tweaking if I'm going to do some for cats to play with. The fabric I chose is beautiful but it really isn't up to the rough and tumble of being dragged around the floor by a hoard of marauding cats! The beak wasn't pointy enough either but that was my fault because the fabric got snagged. I half stuffed it with wadding and then I added some catnip, then stuffed the rest of the bird before stitching the tail together. The problem then was that the cats could smell the catnip and really really really wanted to get at it and it was all I could do to stop them running off with it before I had stitched the tail together.

One catnip birdy  =  one crazoid cat :D

I have also started making some more lavender bags. My very favourite part of making things is choosing the fabrics and trimmings to make things with. I'm gradually building up quite a nice fabric stash but I find buying fabric in fat quarters quite expensive. I have been looking for places to source fabric by the metre but I seem to rather have expensive tastes. In fact, if there were 20 fabrics in a line and I was asked to pick my favourite, you could guarantee it would be the most expensive. Sadly, this doesn't only apply to fabric :-)