A bunting fit for a kitten

Kat is one of my closest friends. We met through work back in '06 and have been close ever since. We don't get to see each other much these days - I left that workplace 2 years ago, we live a fair distance apart, and our lives are so different now - but I still adore her and think about her every day.

On Christmas Eve last year I was sullenly sitting alone on the sofa, the kids having gone to bed early lest they delay Santa's arrival by being up too late. I'd received our presents from Kat in the mail and wanted to save them for the following day, but curiosity got the better of me and I decided to open the card. Along with the usual wishes for Christmas and the New Year was the surprising news that she was five months pregnant with her second child, this one a girl (her son was born early 2012). It was news I was wholly unprepared for. 

I so want another baby. It's not just a desire in the way I think "I want another cat": every fibre of my being aches for another baby, and it's not likely I will get it. I know I have two beautiful children and I am grateful to have them, but it doesn't make that feeling any less intense. So when I suddenly found out my friend is having another baby, I did the only thing I could: I cried. Loudly and intensely, for hours. Not, you understand, because I don't want Kat to have another baby. Of course I do. For some reason her news made my situation - irreconcilably split from my husband, and unlikely to find another relationship before my ovaries shrivel and die - suddenly very real. The baby that I ache for will never be, and now I have to watch my friends bringing baby after baby into their full and happy lives and pretend that I'm really happy for them when in reality all I can feel is sorry for myself.

Now that I've had a few months (and a couple of hundred anti-depressant pills) to get used to the idea, I am excited for her and can't wait to meet her little Kitten. Honestly, with a name like Kat, what else am I going to call her foetus? And being a crazy cat lady myself (I have 6), everything I have bought for the Kitten is cat-related: a beautiful t-shirt, a knitted toy, a teether, plus a few other bits and pieces. Auntie Viv is going to make sure the Kitten lives up to her (nick)name! 

Kat knows of my new-found love of sewing and I promised to make the Kitten something special. I would describe my sewing skills as adequate at best, so it will have to be something simple. I intend to make a receiving blanket for her using some cute kitten fabric I found on Etsy, but I wanted to make something to help decorate her room.

{ Courtesy of MADE. }

One of the earliest tutorials I looked at online last year when I first caught the sewing bug was one for scalloped baby bunting, and it featured this photo >>>

Bunting are ridiculously easy to make - even I could see that - but what a beautiful addition it makes to that plain hospital bassinet. When I saw it the ever-hopeful little voice in the back of my mind said, "Oooh I can make that when/if I have Child 3!" but instead I decided to make one for the Kitten. 

Not having any creativity of my own, I agonised over what colours to make it. I asked Kat to give me some idea of the colours she would be using to decorate the bedroom but she wouldn't let on, merely saying that whatever I choose would be perfect.

Eventually I decided on three prints from Heather Bailey's FreshCut collection, some pink dots from Riley Blake, and a Pat Bravo solid (possibly Crystal Pink, but I can't be sure) and made a 10 scallop line of bunting.

{ The Kitten bunting on Child 1's wall. }

Now I just have to organise a time when we're both free so I can meet up with her and pass it on before the Kitten makes her way into the world.

{ Probably should have ironed it before I hung it... }

In the end I made two, as I stuffed the seam allowance on my first attempt and unpicking the thread left noticeable holes in one of the scallops. So Child 1 got to keep the 'practice' line, and the Kitten gets the purrfect one. I hope she loves it as much as I do.