Finally, finally, I’ve written out the dotty pattern. I was planning on writing up the details on how I came up with the numbers in case anyone wants to modify it before I realized that hey! It’s felted and really, it’s not a math exam where anyone cares if I show my work. If anyone is interested, I’d be more than happy to decipher my notes for you.

So here it is! I was a bit fast-and-loose about measuring my gauge, but hey! It’s felted, so don’t worry about it! Also, the bottom decrease method doesn’t necessarily jive with my row gauge in stockinette, but I think it will work based on how mine turned out (actually, the bed bottom is now flat after the cats used it a few times).

I’d love to know if anyone actually makes this thing. Your cats will heart you for it!

Yarn: Knitpicks Wool of the Andes [100% wool, 110 yards/50 grams]

• 3 balls MC [Chocolate (23774)]
• 2 balls CC1 [Chambray (23769)]
• 2 balls CC2 [Rain (23768)]
• 2 balls CC3 [Stream (23434)]

Notions:

• One 24 or 32 inch US 10.5 circular needle
• One set of US 10.5 double-pointed needles
• One stitch marker
• Tapestry needle

Gauge:

• Dot pattern, before felting: 3 circles wide by 3 pattern repeats tall = 3.75 inches by 3.5 inches
• Dot pattern, after felting: 3 circles wide by 3 pattern repeats tall = 3 inches by 3.18 inches
• Stockinette, before felting: 15 sts by 20 rows = 4 inches square
• Stockinette, after felting: ? stitches by 42 rows = 4 inches

Finished Measurements:

• Bottom: 17 inches in diameter
• Sides: 5 inches tall

Dotty Pattern:
Worked in the round over 6 sts, slip all sts as if to purl

Row 1: Attach MC. Knit
Row 2: Purl
Row 3: Break MC, attach CC. [sl2, K4]
Rows 4-7: [sl2, K4]
Row 8: [sl2, K4]. Break CC. Remove marker, sl3, place marker. This is your new beginning-of-round.

The Dotty Cat Bed pattern

Using MC, CO 276 stitches. Join in the round, being careful not to twist. Place a stitch marker to denote the beginning-of-round.

Sides
Work the Dotty Pattern 9 times, alternating CC colors each repeat (CC1, CC2, CC3, CC1, …).

Transition Section
Break CC3, attach MC.
Purl one row in MC.
Flip cat bed inside-out. Remove marker. Slip one stitch from left needle to right. Pass second stitch from right needle to left, do not drop stitch off left needle. Place marker. You should now be set up to knit every round, and the stockinette side of the fabric is on the inside of the bed.

[K34, PM, K35, PM] to end. You should have eight evenly-spaced markers around the bed.
Knit one row in MC. Break MC.

Bottom
Work three-row stripes, alternating colors in this order: CC1, CC3, CC2, MC. Or invent your own stripey sequence. Go crazy! At some point you will run out of the CC colors - switch to MC and use that until the end.

At the same time, decrease as follows:

Row 1: [K to two stitches before marker, k2tog, slip marker]
Row 2: K
Row 3: K
Row 4: [K to two stitches before marker, k2tog, slip marker]
Row 5: K
Row 6: K
Row 7: [K to two stitches before marker, k2tog, slip marker]
Row 8: K

*** Warning: this decrease sequence above is emperically-generated - no math was used here! In the pattern photos, the decreases are worked every 3 rounds, which led to a not-flat bottom. However, once the cats started lying in the bed, the bed bottom flattened out in no time. ***

Continue decreasing (switching to double-pointed needles when there are too few stitches on the circular needle) until you have 24 stitches. Break yarn, thread through remaining stitches, and pull tightly to close.

Finishing
Weave in ends. Felt the bed, using instructions here or here. I placed the bed in a zippered pillowcase, then threw the pillowcase and a pair of of jeans in my washing machine, on the HOT wash cycle, for about 15-20 minutes.

Once the bed is felted to your liking, block it over a cylindrical surface or bowl (I used an inverted bowl and lots of plastic bags).

Coerce cats into sleeping in it.

This morning Rob remarked, “Wow, he sleeps in there a lot!” Yeah! Joe has stopped attacking the bed (for the most part) and now sleeps in it, usually in the evenings when he’s at his blurriest. I luckily snagged a decent shot of him this morning before heading off to work.

Silver doesn’t really lay in the bed, but rather on it (see also: baby got back). Joe does the same thing (although he’s much smaller than Silver), so the bed sides are pretty smooshed down at this point.

Blackie doesn’t really give the bed much thought, she’d rather hang out in her pillow. Regardless, I’m calling this project a success! The cats certainly use the bed more than I’ve worn most of my handknit sweaters (gulp!).

Dotty Cat Bed, before felting:

Maybe you noticed that the exterior bottom is in reverse stockinette? I flipped the whole thing inside out once I finished with the sides, so that the visible portion of the bed bottom would be in prettier stockinette. It’s not a very noticeable difference once the bag is felted, though.

Wool of the Andes felted like a champ!

Pattern: A fusion of the dotty pattern + inspiration from the Wendy Knits Kitty Pi + the maths.
Yarn: Knitpicks Wool of the Andes, which is surprisingly nice given the price.

I first fell for the dot pattern after I saw it in the Mason-Dixon book (remember the bench cover? yum), but it’s also in the first Barbara Walker Treasury. This wasn’t purely a project to pamper my cats - looking back in the old archives, I realized that I had purchased the yarn in order to teach myself Continental knitting. I figured that I wouldn’t be so bummed about wonky tension if I was felting it at the end. Did I knit continental? Yes, for about a half-row. Learning new things is hard! Actually, by the time I figured out the original plan, I was slogging through the zillion rows in the bottom and really just wanted to get the damn thing done.

The pattern looks like the Kitty Pi, but is knit a bit differently. This bed is knit from the top-down, decreasing to form the bottom. I also used my own logic for creating the bottom decreases, which turned out almost-correct.

I heart the little dots! My swatch felted more in height than in width, so I modified the stitch pattern a bit to create circles when felted. The stitch pattern is super, super simple, with great results.

Yeah, the bottom isn’t quite flat. There are two reasons for this: my decrease method (dec 8 stitches every third row) didn’t quite match my swatch shrinkage, and I’m a dolt and computed the swatch shrinkage incorrectly. I did figure out the correct way to decrease - decrease 8 stitches every third row twice, then decrease 8 stitches every other row once.

Too bad that decreasing every third row didn’t turn out - I did three-row stripes on the bottom, and it was really easy to remember to decrease when I change colors.

The cats haven’t snuggled up to the bed quite yet. I can’t blame them, it was still slightly damp yesterday. The bed causes Blackie to yawn meanly, and Joe keeps running up to it and ATTACKING it.

I’ll probably write up the pattern at some point, if I can decipher my (very!) vague notes. And if any cats learn to love the bed, there will surely be photographic documentation on this here blog!

These cats:

Are clearly in need of a soft place to sleep! When I unpacked my yarn after the move, I found a bunch of Knitpicks Wool of the Andes that were slated for a cat bed. My stash is totally at storage capacity, so I finally got cracking on the bed to make some room for more yarn.

I’m all about the blue lately. I first saw the stitch pattern in the Mason Dixon book, but you can also find it in the first Barbara Walker treasury. Circles!

I put my cutie swatch in a zippered pillowcase, tossed in a little pillow for some good agitation action, and set it off. 10 minutes later I checked on the felting progress, and imagine my surprise when I found that the pillow had a hole in it, and its guts had EXPLODED into the washing machine and were floating in the water. Ack! That was the second time I’ve run the washer - Wally and his bro Dan the dryer are brand freaking new. I very, very carefully fished out all that crap (which was shredded poufs of fiberfill), and it royally sucked.

Wally made it through and felted the swatch like a champ. The swatch felted more in length than width, so I’m knitting a narrower version of the pattern in the final cat bed, so hopefully it will felt into circles rather than ovals.

I’ve made a bit more progress than this - the sides of the bed are done, and I’m about halfway done with the bottom. The cats have been chasing the yarn and gnawing on it, so here’s hoping that they’ll dig the finished product!

When I first taught myself how to knit, I was psyched. I thought that I would make all kinds of cute scarves and sweaters, and that I’d save a ton of money from buying them from a store. Then I went to a yarn store. Holy shit, yarn is expensive! The wonderful ladies at Northampton Wools directed me at the best yardage-per-dollar yarn in the store, but I still balked at the cost. Eventually I discovered how to be a savvy yarn purchaser, the Webs 20% discount and where to get good deals. I think I’ve done pretty well over the years - I’ll drop some big cash on small things (like, um, Koigu), but I’ve never purchased a sweater amount of yarn for full price. Well, that’s not quite right - Green Gable was knit with full-price Knitpicks Shine, but that stuff is cheap!

The gist of this is that I’m very likely to take advantage of a good deal when I see one. Yarntopia was having a 30%-off-all-summer-yarns sale this past weekend, and I really, truly, could not resist.

Rowan 39: 20% off. I really like two patterns in this: Rambling Rose and Crinkle.

Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy: 30% off. Will become something summery. The yarn is sportweight, which is awesome for the unbearable heat and humidity that is Houston.

RYC Cashcotton: 30% off. A cardigan for me. I would have picked up a different color (I realize that I own way too much purple yarn), but the other colors were very meh.

Handmaiden Sea Silk: 20% off. Yum. Seriously soft. This will probably be a gift for someone, maybe my mother. The yarn is dyed very interestingly - the bluish-green is very dominant. I’m curious to see how it will look knitted up. Anyone know a pattern that takes one skein of this stuff?

The next day I got my Knitpicks order in the mail. Crap, I had forgotten about that. It was a cheap order though, right over the $40-for-free-shipping line. Pictured is some Wool of the Andes, I have two balls of each of those colors. I’m planning on making a felted cat bed - I’ve been wanting to teach myself Continental knitting on something where I don’t have to worry about how uneven the stitches look. I also purchased a size 5 Options needle (the Trellis Scarf? Impossible to do a k7tog in the Habu silk with a blunt Addi. Truly impossible.), some dyeable yarn, and the Hanging Garden Lace Stole pattern.

Time to get knitting. No more yarn purchases until I put a dent in what I already have.