I made these place mats for my cat’s upstairs and downstairs water bowls, as at the moment they’re just resting on tea towels to stop them splashing when I put the bowl down.
The central cats are left over from a cat panel fabric which I used to make a play mat for a friend a few years ago, and then I had fun surrounding them with crazy quilting strips.
The wadding in the middle is from an old bath towel to help them be absorbent. They’re about 12" round.
When it came time to bind them, I had bits leftover from a quilt binding from about 2012, which I added scraps to. I swear back then the way to add binding was to stitch down just one edge of the strip, then fold it all to the right side, fold 1/4" under on that side and stitch it down. It seems now the best way is to stitch both raw edges down, then flip the folded edge to the other side and sew it down. It worked fine, but as my binding strip was only 1 3/4" wide, I was having to stitch a bit close to the edge!
I’m glad they’re finished as they’ve been in my studio just needing binding since May. The cat-boy in question decided he needed to supervise the binding, I guess he was worried it would be too small.
I love them to bits! They came out so cute and perfect. I would love to make something like that for my daughter’s cat…but his water bowl area is like the splash zone at Sea World. We use a high sided tray to try to contain the mess and we’re only marginally successful.
These are so cute. My dogs’ old place mats are, well, old and not sufficient anymore. They need replacing badly. I think I I’ll do something like this. Thanks for the inspiration.
Not only are these absolutely adorable (Anyone who knows me knows I am absolutely cat crazy), but my jaw dropped at how perfect the binding is. Jaw dropped. No joke. I am in awe. You could teach a master class.
These are perfection! Sweet designs. So your binding is just fabric strips or some type of bias tape pieces? All of your circles are perfectly flat. Cute little orange fella peeking in.
I cannot tell you how amazing I think these are!!! I wish I could be one of your cats so I could drink out of a bowl atop one! ha!
They’re all fantastic, but the kitty with the umbrella is my favorite. No wait. Maybe the one with the sunshine, or the one with the birds on the wire. Nope. Definitely the one with the milk. Can you tell I love them?!?!!?
These are super fun! I love how you framed each design with such vibrant colors. I also love how you added various fabrics in random lengths to the binding! These are so bright and cheery that if cats could smile, yours would undoubtedly smile every time he went to his water bowl.
Hello lovely people, sorry I’ve been absent for a bit, I had all of the meetings this week.
@tapestry maybe an absorbent liner to go in the tray? If you made it in a net/cross shape, and stitched across the base shape it should fold down into it. The fabric might be able to be taller at the back and sides if it’s thick enough to stand up.
@TheMistressT and @Mountains_and_Clouds thank you! I made a paper template and drew it on the towel. I was pleased with how round they ended up!
@gozer thank you so much I left them for weeks, and did it one morning when I was sick of moving the mats round my box room studio thank you for the feature, it made my day.
@ArtsyLadyCrafter thank you. All the binding is bias strips, from scrap fabric. Some is leftovers from a quilt over a decade ago, and I made it up to the 160" I needed with leftover scraps from recent projects. I think it works cos I managed to make lots of it blue.
Will reply more later, got to go look round an old fort!
Thank you so much @Kwality570 your lovely comment has made my day. The fabric was a joy to use, picking good combos to go together. I sorted my scraps by colour, and it was so fun to play with.
I had so much fun I used a similar technique to make backgrounds for hooplas for myself and some friends, one of which is “kitty” themed
I left them for weeks, and did it one morning when I was sick of moving the mats round my box room studio 
thank you for the feature, it made my day.
