Sewing With Nancy

Most of us have cuddly comforters on our beds but what about our four-legged friends? Laura Nigbur is here via Skype to encourage us to make Cage Comforters for dogs and cats that are currently living at animal shelters. Laura, welcome to Sewing with Nancy. Thank you so much for having me. The Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Commission has a great program about the Cage Comforters. Tell us about that program. Absolutely. Well, we hope that the pets that come in here have a very short stay with us. We do want that stay to be as comfortable and as welcoming for them as possible. So what we do, is we ask individuals to use their talents to make cage comforters. It's for the cats, for the dogs. It goes into cat condos and the dog kennels. It gives them a little extra warmth in those winter months but also gives them that extra padding for a nice comfortable rest. Just like you mentioned, we have our comforters it allows them to have some of that as well. You've encouraged people in your area to make the cage comforters. When we were talking about this earlier it can be a beginner sewer. You can use remnants. Tell us about some of the specifications. Absolutely, we're looking for two specifications one for the dogs and one for the cats. The cats is a 10" x 15", with a 3-1/2" thickness. The dogs is 24" x 34" again also with more of like a 3-1/2" thickness just to give them a little extra padding for them to be more comfortable. But again, it can be beginner sewers. Lots of the volunteers will use remnants or the threads don't match. The animals don't care about how good it looks. They just want it to be comfortable. You do have one suggestion though. The fabrics shouldn't have a loop or something where their nails can get caught. Absolutely, so it shouldn't be chenille or any of the burlap. The thickness is very important because we may not have our comforters that thick. So, make sure that they're thick so you don't have to put two together. Correct, that's very helpful for us. Even though you're at the Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control Center you don't want everyone to send cage comforters to you. You have some suggestions for someone say, living in Kentucky or Arizona. Absolutely. So, while we love that our volunteers locally send us our comforters shelters across America are looking for cage comforters as well. I encourage you to look on the website or call your local shelter and see what they need. Their sizes are probably a bit different than ours so it's good to call ahead first. Yes, because you mentioned that there are 20 different universal sizes of cages or condos for the animals. So making them 10" x 15" or 24" x 24" may not fit your local area. Correct. You have how many animals a year that you service? We take in about 13,000 animals out of Milwaukee County the largest animal control facility in Wisconsin. If they are moved to a different center this is like a comfy blanket that a little kid has their comforter goes with them. Yeah, it's like their little blankie. Because especially with the cats when the scents when they've already had their particular scent on one of the comforters it's more comforting for them if they can have something with their scent already on it. Then when they go to their permanent home it's another comfort blanket to follow them through their life. Absolutely. So you have 13,000 animals that you work with. Then you like about 1,000 comforters a year. Yes. That's a lot. Yeah, they go through a lot of wear and tear. As much as we try to save them and we have volunteers who will fix them after they've been used a lot we do have to replace them often. I think this is a great project even if you're teaching a young person to sew or working with someone who hasn't sewn before this would be a perfect project because the animal will enjoy the comfort but things don't have to match. Exactly. Well, Laura, I thank you for joining us. This great program of cage comforters is an easy project. I think those of us who have animals at home my dog Lucas came from a shelter. I'd gladly make them, I'm sure viewers will, too. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me. If you'd like more information on the Cage Comforters you can go to all things Sewing with Nancy which is at our website, nancyzieman.com. You can watch the latest of shows about 70 shows are online. You can re-watch this program, if you'd like and then click on Nancy's Corner to find more information about the Cage Comforters. Well, this wraps up our three-part series on "Sew Simple with Rectangles and Squares." I've had a lot of fun working with these projects and I hope that you will pick one or two and make a Sew Simple project to decorate your home or office. Thanks for joining us. Bye for now.