Yes, I have put this project off. I know that it will only take 20 minutes tops to redo the dog’s beds. There have just been so many other more important things to do. However, the day has come and since the bed fell apart in the last run through the disinfecting cycle of the washer I feel like I can use the fluff from the old bed to create one of them and then use a couple of old pillows for the fluff in the other dog bed.  We have two dogs, an older arthritic lab and a spoiled hound dog. Neither share the dog beds and unless we want to put up with barking I am forced to create two dog beds.

Here is the final product to refresh our memories.

Luckily when I go to check out my resources I find two large remnant pieces of fabric that I bought when the kids were small enough to use. This translates into the fact that I have been hoarding fabric and not sewing it after I buy it. :0)

You never do this….right?

Ok well here is the first picture in this tutorial.

This is the clean dog bed fluff. You can see that it totally turned inside out when washed. The zipper is done for. The green bag also has holes in it. Here is the fabric I am using for the first dog bed. It is a Dark grey sweatshirt fleece.

Please bear with the  unfocused state of this photo. I was in a hurry to get this WIP off my list.

I turned the fabric inside out.

This is one large piece big enough to fold in half lengthwise and sew from the folded edge to the cut edge. Like this.

I did that on both sides leaving the front open. Here you can see that I didn’t even take time to cut off the selvage of the fabric. It will be on the inside and no one except the dog will ever know. Dusty won’t care as he will just use his teeth on it and think I have done an exceptional job on his chew toy. I then turned it right side out.

I then stuffed the old (Clean) fluff inside the new dog bed cover.  Like this.

You can see that I have left a bunch of room to be able to sew this last seam on the sewing machine. The fluff had started to come out of the old inner covering of the dog bed.

Then I turned the edge under and sewed across the dog bed from side to side.

Here you can see me living dangerously. I didn’t even pin it. I couldn’t find the pins in all the clutter so I did this part pinless. It would help if my sewing table were longer as it would support the heavy dog bed a little better. I wooled it around until I sewed the whole seam and tucked the edges under as I sewed so that the outside seam would be finished.

Voila! The finished product!

I made a second dog bed much like the first and filled it with three old (clean) pillows for the stuffing. I have now finished two WIPS and the dogs are happy. How do I know that the dogs are happy? Well, instead of waking up at the unbearable hour of 4:30 a.m. they waited until almost 6 am. I am happy, the dogs are happy, my husband is happy, my work table is getting cleaned off. A total win/win situation for everyone involved.  Did I tell you that they howl when they wake up in the morning…like wolves. Mournful and really LOUD, right under our bedroom. So I am thrilled and much more rested!

Talk to you later,

Karen

P.S. It did really only take about 20 minutes to make both of the dog beds. This is a great beginning to sew project as dogs don’t really care about appearances. Just be sure to remove ALL of the pins if you use them. You will want to measure and then double and add six inches to the measurement of the pillows so that you have enough fabric.  Unless you are like me and have a huge stash of stuff you will never use.