Crafting with Cat Hair: Cute Handicrafts to Make with Your Cat [Paperback]

Kaori Tsutaya (Author), Amy Hirschman (Translator)

Book Description

Release date: October 11, 2011

Got fur balls?

Are your favorite sweaters covered with cat hair? Do you love to make quirky and one-of-a-kind crafting projects? If so, then it’s time to throw away your lint roller and curl up with your kitty! Crafting with Cat Hair shows readers how to transform stray clumps of fur into soft and adorable handicrafts. From kitty tote bags and finger puppets to fluffy cat toys, picture frames, and more, these projects are cat-friendly, eco-friendly, and require no special equipment or training. You can make most of these projects in under an hour—with a little help, of course, from your feline friends!

Editorial Reviews

Review

“The year’s most unconventional crafting book.”—Associated Press
 
“This dandy little guide shows how to turn stray clumps of cat hair into soft and adorable handicrafts.”—Tucson Citizen

"There's no other word for this book except: purrfect." —Los Angeles Times

“Intensely cute…”—Publishers Weekly

“Quirky and the projects are super easy.”—OregonLive.com
 
“It caught our attention.”—The Huffington Post

“You may think kitties are only good for getting hair all over your favorite chair and eating more kibble than you thought possible but Crafting with Cat Hair will show you how to turn cat hair into mittens, tote bags, book covers and more.”—CraftFoxes.com
 
“Personal projects that celebrate your cat and they look as cute as can be!”—Neatorama
 
“Put those furballs to work for YOU!”—Suvudu

“It’s bizarre, to be sure, but the appliques are kind of cute, too. This is a good one for your cat-loving crafty friends (and you know you have them).”—Austin American Statesman

About the Author

Born in Tokyo, Kaori Tsutaya is a cat lover and freelance writer whose writings have been published in magazines and special-interest books. Many of her published works are based on the subject of cats and include articles, photography, and books on crafting.

Her blogs “The Laws of the Cat” (nekono-okite.cocolog-nifty.com) and “The Cat Hair Craft Room” (nekoke.com) are popular in Japan. 

Amy Hirschman is a translator, crafter, and pop-culture enthusiast living in California. She studied Japanese for four years at the University of Pittsburgh and has lived in Japan. Though she is not a cat owner, her friends will attest that she is the greatest cat sitter they have ever had. This is her first published translation.

 

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Quirk Books (October 11, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594745250
• ISBN-13: 978-1594745256
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 0.4 x 7.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (65 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #18,644 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #10 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Crafts & Hobbies > Mixed-Media
  • #26 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Pets & Animal Care > Cats

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Warm & whimsical book for the crafty pet-lover October 27, 2011

By S. L. Smith TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

My husband thought I was crazy all these years for collecting our cats' fur after brushing. But after playing about with a particularly copious wad one day, I noticed how felt-like it could become, very much like the wool rovings I've been collecting and paying good money for. Kaori Tsutaya has eclipsed my artful intentions with her book "Crafting With Cat Hair". But, ah, the sweet taste of redemption!!

This book really depends on many other materials to augment the cat fur, such as felt sheets, pre-made objects, and items you can find in your recycling bin. I bought this book based purely on its title and cover, and I was hoping for more crafts in the vein of purely stand-alone needle-felted objects such as Fleece Dog: A Little Bit of Magic Created with Raw Wool and a Special Needle, Little Felted Animals: Create 16 Irresistible Creatures with Simple Needle-Felting Techniques, and Wool Pets: Making 20 Figures with Wool Roving and a Barbed Needle. The only stand-alone item made wholly from fur is the finger puppet on the cover, whereas all of the other projects - hats and gloves, tote bag, coin purse, book cover, badges, boxes, pin cushions - are essentially needle-punched with feline fur or are embellished with a diminutive needle-punched pattern. My favorite project is the portrait; for this you will need a small frame to memorialize a favorite furry loved one.

Ms.... Tsutaya infuses her book with a friendly spirit, and rounds it out with informative and relevant sections on brushing tips and techniques, bugs and pests (she encourages the use of pesticides to keep your crafts intact), the nature of cat fur, and much more. This small book will go a long way towards pleasing the crafter who also happens to love pets. Read more ›

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Pleasantly Surprised October 26, 2011

By Ellie

Format:Paperback

I just received "Crafting with Cat Hair" as a gift. At first I thought it was a joke, but after reading the book, I was pleasantly surprised. The thought of brushing your cat and using the fur to make crafts might seem sort of strange to some, but when you think about it, it starts to make sense (a little). My germ-o-phobic fears were laid to rest when I read how to wash the cat hair before using it. We use clean sheep wool, why not use clean cat hair?

Kaori Tsutaya has written "Crafting with Cat Hair" with a cat lover's heart. The book is filled with not only easy and cute crafts using cat hair, but photos of much loved cats and information about keeping those cats happy.

Another reason why I like this book is that it incorporates recycled items in the projects. Cardboard, milk cartons, and old wool sweaters are used.

So...if you know a cat lover, a crafter, or someone who loves to recycle, this would make a lovely gift for them.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Charming cat fun! November 1, 2011

By CuteEverythingcom TOP 1000 REVIEWER

Format:Paperback

If you've ever seen the amount of hair that comes off your cat when you brush it, especially in the spring, you've probably wondered if there's anything useful to do with it. In Crafting with Cat Hair, author Kaori Tsutaya shares her discovery of how to use cat hair to make super easy felt crafts. Felt is incredibly simple to make (even out of cat hair!), only needing tangled fibers that you compress to turn into delightful crafts. Most of the crafts in this book don't even need sewing skills, really only using a using a felting needle and sponge to complete the projects.

Crafting with Cat Hair includes instructions on how to make charming finger puppets and mini portraits of your cat entirely out of cat hair and then goes on to crafts like tote bags, mittens and gloves that you can apply the cat felt on top of. The book also contains several two page spreads of cat facts from why cats have no smell, to the differences between a topcoat and an undercoat. And the back of the book includes profiles of the sweet felines who "donated" hair to the book. My favorite project was the lovable three-dimensional mini portraits you can make of your own cat. I can't wait to make one of my Siamese kitten once he's shedding enough hair, his portrait will be (almost) as cute as he is!

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Not what was expected. January 19, 2013

By Aaron Lundgren

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I bought this for my girlfriend as a joke thinking it would have a bunch of different crafts since shes in the early stages of being a crazy cat lady. Turns out its basically one craft. You make a cat cut out woven from cat hair and it shows you various things to stick it on from a purse to a piggy bank. Best part of the book is the title.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Book is a little misleading December 27, 2012

By theincrediblehoek

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I bought this book for a friend as his wedding present; he had been collecting his cat's hair for years with aspirations of making some sort of scarf, gloves, or other wearable garment. Seeing this book, I thought that it would be PERFECT for his needs, the book even mentioned making gloves and picture frames. However, there is something that must be said about this book and all of the crafting things that it claims to give you instructions how to make.

Most of the designs, for picture frames, gloves, etc... are not constructed out of cat hair, but rather out of felt that are later applied with a little cat logo, of which is made from cat fur. The little puppet on the cover of the book indicated to me that all of these products would be entirely constructed out of cat fur, but alas, most of them instead use felt. The only way that they get away with this, is that the instructions for making gloves only include how to make a tiny little cat logo (about 1/2 inch tall?) which is then attached to a set of gloves.

This book should be rewritten: "Crafting with cat hair: Cute logo of a cat to make out of cat fur to put on anything you want".