Cuddle Cup

New pets give me the perfect excuse to try things out. I'm still getting used to this whole guinea pig mama thing. He loves to snuggle, but he always wedges himself in a corner or under cushions. I found this great tutorial for something called a "cuddle cup."

This is actually my first time working with batting and it was sheer hell. I do not like it, Sam-I-Am!! But Hari loves his new cuddle cup, so I suppose all's well that ends well! Here's my attempt.

First, find a bowl in which your guinea pig will fit. The tutorial I linked suggests an 11" diameter circle, but that was far too small for an adult Texel. I wound up using an old chip bowl from Target.

Using that as a template, I cut two circles of fleece. Luckily, batting sticks to fleece like glue, so I slapped a square on one of the fleece circles and trimmed.

 Do not let your guinea pig or cat run off with the circles.

Then, I measured the circumference of the rim of the bowl. This measurement became the length of the wall of the cup. The wall has the same layers as the circular base (2 fleece, 1 batting). I used slightly higher walls for my slightly larger boy, so my wall pieces were 33.5" x 8". I used the chip bowl to create a shorter portion of the wall, so it is easier to climb into the cup.

Assembling the parts is a little bit tricky. First, pick one "wall" fleece and one "base" fleece. Fold the wall in half with the right side in. Sew the loose ends together to make a continuous loop.

 

Pin the base to the bottom of the wall, keeping right sides together. Be meticulous with this step, or else the pieces will not match well once you're sewing! Once the base is pinned, sew it on, creating the outer shell of the cup, like so:

Do not flip it inside out it! It needs to remain inverted when you assemble the inner and outer shells. That will happen at the very end! If you're wanting to play on the safe side, tack your batting to your remaining fleece pieces. Then, repeat the process used to form the outer shell of the cup, but keep the batting on the wrong side. I found sewing all that material to be very slow going, but this was my first time working with so many layers!

The fun part: Stack the inner shell inside of the inverted outer shell. I pinned the wall at the middle of the lowest portion, and on either side of the low portion, where it swoops back up to meet the height of the rest of the wall. After pinning, it slumped over on itself. Since this is supposed to stand on its own, I went ahead and trimmed about 1.5" off the top, making my wall height closer to 6.5". Sew around the top of the cup, leaving a gap somewhere to pull the right side of the outer shell out. This will effectively "revert" the inverted cup. Almost done!

For the gap that's left over, just do a quick blind stitch. Take some time to align the seams and form the cup into its final upright state. If you have cats, do not let them see the final result, because they will become jealous and attempt to steal it.

Introduce your guinea pig and enjoy! Hari loves his. He even figured out how to flip it over and make a cave. He's a happy piggy.

New Arrival, New Craft!

This Sunday, our little family gained a new small-and-fuzzy member from a local exotics rescue.

His name is Harington, and he's a Texel Cavy... or just a fancy-ass guinea pig, colloquially. He's the sweetest thing, naturally, but his curly textured fur is rather long, so I didn't want to use a standard shavings cage substrate. He gets tangled up in hay enough as it is!

While I was looking for alternatives, I stumbled across this tutorial and decided to go for it! The idea is to use fleece as a "wicking" material to an ultra-absorbent and waterproof material. This absorbs the urine, and the feces can easily be swept up daily, making for a cleaner cage, less expense, and a happier, healthier gpig.

I grabbed some generic waterproof mattress pad protectors from Wal*Mart. In case you're wondering dimensions and materials:

Using the bottom of my cage as a template, I made a pattern out of cardboard and cut the mattress pads down to size (28" x 16"). The dimensions I used were of the bottom inside the plastic tub. After that, I lay it down on no-pill fleece and cut a small border around the mattress pad. I sewed around the edge of the mattress pad (zig-zag stitch).

I measured more fleece for the side panels. Mine were 29" x 11" and 17" x 11". I used half-inch margins just to make it easy on myself. 11" is twice the height of the side the plastic base of the cage, that way the sides roll over and look pretty on the outside, too. It also helps prevent Harington from pulling the fleece into the cage and making a mess everywhere.

The next step is to connect the side pieces together into a large loop. Keep all the seams to the same "side" of the circle. Before moving on, make sure your side pieces fit the base. You'll end up with something like this:

The hardest part is last, of course! The bottom waterproof/fleece piece must be attached to the side panels. I used a straight stitch with very small margins to prevent loss of interior space. The corners were very difficult - make sure that they are stitched over very tightly!

I threw down a couple of generic animal pee-pads before laying down the cage liner.

Add your lid and accessories. The fleece moved quite easily for the notches where the lid attaches. The side clasps are secure. No extra holes in the fleece are necessary, and this is pretty thick fleece.

Add the guinea pig...

And let the good times roll!

Just to give a little review of why fleece bottoms are GREAT:
- The absorbent layers and daily sweeps keep the cage clean for about a week, making for a healthy environment.
- No worries that the guinea pig will get shavings stuck in their fur.
- I looks neater than shavings, but is still just as cozy.
- If I get tired of the design I created, I can just redo this process with a new pattern of fleece. Maybe for holidays?
- MONEY. You'll save more making a couple of these and rotating/laundering them once a week than buying litter and cleaning supplies over the lifespan of the gpig.
- TIME. I have a small zoo now, with the addition of Harington. Finals are swiftly approaching. Cleaning daily takes all of 1 minute, and I can throw this in the wash with my stuff once a week.






I still need to make one more so I can rotate the two weekly, but this project was a bit time-consuming for a week with an exam.