Fabric Cat House for Stuffed Animals

I created a fleece fabric stuffed animal cat home for my 6-year-old son. He loves cats and asked me to create this for him one evening. I have never made anything like this before - but love to sew and love a challenge. He encouraged me along the way - and it took me a few hours to create this.

Materials Used:
1. Polar Fleece Material (about 1/2 yard)
2. Cotton Material (about 1/2 yard for the lining)
3. Felt (small amount needed for the lettering & cat decoration)
4. Thick Interfacing Material (about 1/2 yard for in between the lining and the outer fleece material)

How to Create the Cat Home
First, I washed all the fabric and dried it in the dryer. I then cutout my large long piece of fleece material to make the rounded top of the cat home. I eyed the design to approximate how large I wanted the cat house to be. It doesn't need to be perfect. I then cutout the bottom piece of fleece, as well as the back piece. I placed all of the pieces together the best that I could to see that they would all fit together according to their measurements.

I used the thick interfacing in between all layers - to really add stability to the cat house If you want to add a cat cutout shape, or lettering - you must cutout pieces of felt to do that. If you can sew them on with your sewing machine, then do this prior to sewing the pieces together. If you plan on sewing them on by hand, then you can do that at any time prior to sewing the fleece to the cotton. After sewing on the lettering and cat shape, I then sewed the pieces together.

I then sewed the main top piece to the back piece, with the thick interfacing in between -  making sure everything was lined up. I wanted the lining to lay really flat along the back of the fleece outer material. Then I sewed the lining of the bottom piece to the lining of the bottom fleece, with interfacing in between - and the same for the back.

The last thing I added was the handle. I create this with a couple strips of fleece, with the thick interfacing in between the strips. I actually cut a small straight slice through the top fleece material to insert the strip in it. Then I used the sewing machine to sew it in properly.

Tip to Consider: You may want to cut the thick interfacing pieces either 1/4 of an inch smaller than the material it will be sandwiched in between. Some sewing machines cannot handle going through so many layers of thick material. If it is placed in between your other layers, but slightly smaller - then you will be sewing the thick material while creating a snug area for it to be placed in between - with little room to move. This will make your sewing much easier!