Boy, was this a challenging project. Penny has an enormous personality and making her a hammock to match her personality was a challenge. But, the challenge is why I sew.
I used a crazy quilt technique that greatly reduced the work on this hammock.
I modified the technique used in this bag for Penny's hammock. I might have to make the bag someday. heehee.
Anyways, to just add complexity. Penny not only needs her hammock to match her personality, but she developed a nasty chewing habit while I was designing her new furniture. Geez. After lengthy discussions with her human mother, I endeavored to make a hammock that wouldn't entice Penny to nibble. This meant encasing the fleece in woven cotton. So, it has the beautiful pieced side made of cotton and the backing is zebra printed cotton. Simple, eh.
Well, it would have been simple if I hadn't mucked up a few times. I wanted the binding to be purty, so I spent extra time on it. Next time, I'm going to use my bleeping binding foot. Grumble. Anyways, I made a test hammock for the binding because I needed to practice the binding. That hammock went together perfectly.
This is the test hammock in the midst of being bound.
So, when I was ready to bind the fancy rainbow version, I just jumped to it, thinking oh this will be a breeze because the test hammock went together so easily.
Eeek. I don't have a picture of my oops. Anyways, I forgot to attach the backing before I quilted the hammock. Did I mention that the zebra cotton fabric although pretty was absolutely essential because of Penny's chewing? Fortunately, I caught it in the nick of time, if you call catching it as the binding was starting to be sewn on. LOL. At that point, the hammock got a day of rest as I scrambled to figure out what I was going to do. Luckily, I just cut the backing to fit and then, quilted the hammock again. Yes, that hammock has a lot of quilting. I shall claim its a design feature.... Extra quilting to reduce its chewability. Yip. That's my story except that I told the truth here. EEK.
So, after I quickly affixed the backing, I just finished the binding that I'd already started and Tadaa!
Here, the troublesome rainbow hammock is almost done, and just needs the final bit of the binding finished. LOL. I think this picture was taken after unpicking some of the binding stitches, but it was only a couple of inches. Nothing like realizing that I forgot to attach the backing.
And, here's the test hammock and rainbow hammock finished except for grommets.
Oh, and I'm just skipping all of the trials and tribulations behind the brocade fabric that I used in the test hammock. Penny's mom had wanted the brocade in the hammock, but I couldn't honestly make up the hammock when I found that its durability wasn't up to my standard. That's why the brocade ended up in the test hammock. If the brocade wears out fast, that's okay because it's just the test hammock.
There was a lot of testing for this hammock which I've previously posted including detail step by step of the crazy quilt piecing.
Here's Daryl testing durability of the brocade in the first test hammock (this hammock stayed with my rats, Daryl loves it) The test hammock that you see in the other pictures in this post is a different hammock from the hammock that Daryl is sprawled within. Yes, I made 3 hammocks to make one hammock for the little diva of a Penny. Grins. I loved every minute. And, I was thrilled to see how much Penny enjoys her hammocks. It was worth it.
Oh, and, here's Penny's hammocks in her cage. Please check out Hammy Happenings, the blog for Penny and her hamster and gerbil friends.
The photos of Penny on her hammock and Penny's cage, of course, are from Hammy Happenings. The photo of the quilted bag is from Sewn Up by Teresa Down Under.
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