Sew your own fishy cat toys!

Today’s quick project was a crinkly sounding fish toy with a little catnip inside for our new kittens.

My son split the seat out of these shorts, and instead of tossing them in the trash, I cut them up for cat toys.

I decided which side I wanted to have as the right side, drew a basic fish shape and stitched some scraps on with a zigzag stitch.

Since I’m often flying by the seat of my pants when I make something without a pattern, I realized my fish outline was on the right side. So, I stitched the outline so I could see it on the wrong side.

Embellished fish piece right side together with the plain piece of fabric. Then, pinned the fish sandwich to the batting. This batting is actually the insulation from my Home Chef meal kits. It’s the thickness of a high loft quilt batting, but it’s coarser than batting and has the shiny plastic on both sides. It’s perfect for a cat toy because it has a nice crinkly sound.

I stitched just inside my outline stitching and left a 4” opening to turn it. Then, I trimmed about 1/4” away from the seam and clipped the curves.

Two things I will change for the next one:
I will make that tail area wider and I won’t put a strip of fabric on the tail, as it was a little difficult to turn.

This is what it looks like on the batting side. If you don’t have this batting from Home Chef meals, you can use a scrap of high loft batting or no batting and stuff with polyfil.

I managed to get that tail turned, but it wasn’t easy. I stuffed in just a little extra loose batting, and put a T. of my own dried catnip inside. Then, I turned under the open edges, glued with washable adhesive strips, and zigzagged it firmly closed.

Our old cat, Gus, took a nap with the fish and the kitties started playing with it right away. Winner winner fish dinner! All the materials were upcycled for this project.

Let me know if you make your cats some fish toys! They only take a little time and you can use scraps of fabric and batting. Have a blast! And don’t worry about the fish shape. Have you ever seen how different all the fish in the sea look? They come in all sizes and shapes!

I’m not a pattern designer. I just enjoy making stuff. Thank you for sharing. I truly appreciate it!

Anne
Prairie Woman Arts