Sunday, March 02, 2014

Sunday Sew-Day: Dog Tested, Mother Approved

The next part in our denim series must, sadly, be postponed. The bleaching is taking longing than expected. In the meantime though, I do have another sewing project to tide you over. Last weekend was Laika's 5 month birthday. She's getting better at only chewing on things she's given expressly for that purpose, so I decided to make her the crate pad I've been planning for a while.

A little back story: When we got Laika, she inherited an old blanket the Dude had since he was a kid. It was already stained and coming unraveled in a couple places, but even more so now after puppy teeth and claws have had a go at it. She also had an old cushion from a couch in her crate, but, in a fit of puppy rage at not being played with as much as she thought she deserved, she broke the zipper and started shredding the foam. So it was taken away, and she was left with only the hand-me-down blanket which had seen better days.

A couple months back, I found some lime green fleece in the remnant bin at Joann's for $7.50. Green is Laika's color - her collar, her leash, the placemat under her food and water bowls. It wasn't really intentional. I just seemed drawn to the green every time we needed a new accessory. So I picked up this remnant with the intention of making her a new crate cushion when she eventually learned the meaning of the word "no".

Fleece Dog Bed

Finally, that day has come! So I pulled the green fleece out of my craft closet, along with the leftover bits of chair cushion foam from my dining chair redux.

Fleece Dog Bed

I measured Laika's crate and cut my folded-over fabric an inch larger on each side.

Fleece Dog Bed

With right sides facing (although with fleece it's hard to tell), I sewed around the edges, leaving a 6-inch gap in one end.

Fleece Dog Bed

Then I flattened each corner and sewed straight across them an inch or so down.

Fleece Dog Bed

So this is what the corner looks like from the outside.

Fleece Dog Bed

Then I grabbed my not-so-good scissors and started chopping the foam up into blocks.

Fleece Dog Bed

When all the blocks were stuffed inside the fleece, I pinned the hole...

Fleece Dog Bed

...and top-stitched it closed.

Fleece Dog Bed

And then into the crate it went! It's kind of lumpy, but they're squishy lumps - I tried it out myself!

Fleece Dog Bed

She started to chew at it once and I told her no. She hasn't chewed on it since, at least not in my sight. She really seems to like it too! Several nights this past week, she has even chosen it over our Tempurpedic (yeah, we're that kind of dog people).

Fleece Dog Bed

Stay tuned for the continuation of the denim series and see how my bleaching experiment goes...

6 comments:

  1. This green is a great color for your BDF !! She certainly has grown since the glass eating episode.

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    1. She has indeed! She's gained about 10 pounds since then, and we estimate she has another 10 pounds to go.

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  2. I am not a fan of bleaching fabrics. It destroys the integrity of the fibers, however, I do like color remover. It does the same thing without the unwanted side effects. When we wanted to make fabrics look old, we used to put lemon juice on them and hang them on the clothesline for a long time, taking care to rotate the so the sun would hit all the parts.
    The mat looks great and the next dog I get will be crate trained too.
    regards,
    Theresa

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    1. Yeah, I was thinking of getting some color remover now to finish the job. The bleach doesn't seem to have harmed the fabric. It just isn't getting it completely white like I want. On the plus side, the beginning garment was free, so if it gets ruined, I won't feel that bad.

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  3. What? No pic of you trying out the crate pad? A very bad omission :)

    Laika is beautiful. I love her huge paws!

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    1. I was incredibly tempted, but the pose into which I had to contort myself to fit into her crate was borderline pornographic. I suppose I could've tried it out outside the crate, but hey, what fun is it?

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