We have this book which has a collection of favorite stories about a cat named Jenny Linsky. We love the stories of her adventures and the simple illustrations throughout. The stories inspired us to create a little cat bag inspired by our new cat friend (and her friends)!

A Cat Bag
A little bag inspired by the stories of Jenny Linsky.

Supplies:
Cat Bag Template (choose whichever cat head you’d like, since I gave you two options, or make both!)
Scissors
1/4 yard of black wool felt (or whatever color you’d like)
Small scraps of ivory wool felt
Sewing machine (or can do this by hand with embroidery floss and hand sewing needle, but a machine is always faster!)
Coordinating thread
1 yard of ribbon, cording, or yarn (for the bag strap)
Pins (optional)

Directions:
1. Using the cat bag template, cut out your wool fabric pieces: 1 head piece (cut on the fold), 2 eyes, 2 irises, and 6 whiskers (and a nose for one of the patterns).
2. Mark placement for the eye shape, irises, and whiskers (pin in place if you’d like). Sew on the eyes and irises on to the front of your bag.
3. Sew on the whiskers along the whisker line. They are thin, so you want to carefully and make sure it gets sewn on. They don’t have to be straight, quirky is always good!
4. Fold the bag in half, lining up all the fabric edges, and make sure the cat face is facing outward. Edge stitch the sides of the bag 1/4″ from the fabric edge.
5. Determine the right length of the strap for your child, then insert the ends of the strap about 1 1/2″ into the corner of the cat ears, pin in place, and edge stitch the bag strap on. Sewing about an 1 1/2″ of the ear corner will do to make sure the strap is attached securely and give plenty of room to open the bag to fill with little treasures.

If you have little ones who are cat lovers, I’m sure they’d definitely appreciate this project. Or you can enlarge the template, and make one for yourself, if you’re a cat lover! The pattern could also be enlarged to make a cute cat pillow. A cat pillow for Jenny Linsky might be next on our agenda.

I once had a cat named Tigger (um, can you tell I was a major Disney fan growing up). He was the cutest little fella. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a happy ending as the bigger cats of the neighborhood didn’t like him much, but I’ve definitely always been a cat lady. Now that I’m grown, I suddenly have allergies to things I never was allergic to, so I’m not so sure I’d do so well with one here. We have one neighborhood cat that keeps pooping in our garden beds. We don’t appreciate that much and while I like cats, I don’t like them pooping near my vegetables. The girls are vying for a dog, particularly a golden retriever, but we aren’t ready for that. Also, I’m allergic to (some) dogs too! Thus for now, we will keep our dreams of a pet and live through the stories in a book.