Just Call Me Erin!

One of the counselors at school came to my room a few days ago with something that looked like it was in a war zone for quite a long time. She needed my help, she said. I needed to make something for her. It had to be impervious to assault. It had to be unyielding. The gravity in her voice emphasized the seriousness of the situation. I began to panic and viewed the ravaged object in her hand with trepidation.

"What's that," I asked?

"My dog's bed," she hissed.

"You lie," I responded before I could stop myself. The thing was in shreds with thin strands holding it together in places while others were completely ravaged.


I accepted the challenge with the knowledge failure was inevitable. The fabric stores offered all sorts of heavy canvass, but the nails of that dachshund could easily pick at and snag even the tightest weave. Kevlar was my first choice. Carbon fiber my second. Then, I found a heavy faux suede. It had to work. It just had to. I allowed myself to bask in the glory that victory may in fact be mine; then grounded myself becoming reminded that I didn't know how to sew a dog bed. Straight lines? I got those down. Actually making something...that's another story. So, what do you do when you've got no direction? Grab a glass of wine and wing it, baby!


I toyed with several ideas. I couldn't leave it open on one end like a pillow case and I couldn't sew it completely shut because I wanted them to be able to take it off to wash it. I settled on making it like a pillow sham cover that overlaps in back, so I folded over the rough ends, pinned and sewed them down.
Then I lay it upside down, folded it over the pillow, overlapped the ends a bit, removed the pillow, pinned the whole thing together and sewed the edges shut. I used a zigzag stitch to hopefully give it some more staying power.
Actually, before I sewed it shut, I added this little fancy pants stitching to the top fold of the flap in back to hold it flat a bit better.

After flipping it back right side out, I stuffed the pillow back in and now have a fancy pants dog bed!

I'm pretty excited. It surprisingly turned out just like it was supposed to, which usually doesn't happen around here. I'm confident the pillow cover will last a good week. Maybe even a week and a half. That's why I made two. ;)

The morning comes early. Sweet dog bed dreams.