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".

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

...and top-stitched it closed.

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

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).

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