You'll never believe it...

It all got started when I decided I wanted to give my foster dogs a way to remember me... When I was 4 we adopted my first dog Chester. Chester came to us with a stuff Garfield that remained his favorite toy for a very long time (at least until we got our crazy Belle dog about 14 years later). So, I thought it would be nice if the foster dogs could have something to remind them of possibly their first safe home if the new owners wanted.

I don't know if you have priced dog beds lately but holy crap! One basic plain boring dog bed big enough for a medium size dog can cost over $50!! I'm not talking about the designer dog beds with canopies, just the large pillow or basket looking ones. I recall standing in pet smart with Kristin and Penny dog saying we could make that... and we could make that one... and we could make that... (we meaning her as she recently purchased a sewing machine :) but hey I could cut the fabrics!)

Some of you may be familiar with my previous craft attempts that avoided sewing with a passion. These included such home decor endeavors as glued and grommeted valances. Even though these turned out pretty nice...


Melissa and Shannon at my office are excellent quilters. They offer to teach me and invite me to quiting events with them, but I've always declined because of some scarring sewing projects I attempted during childhood. That and the fact that I can think of a lot of things I'd like to spend $250 on other than a sewing/quilting machine.

But I kept thinking about how stupid it was that dog beds were so expensive and so ugly. Then I decided that if Kristin could do it then I might just could too.

I could not avoid it any longer. I had to put my past of hours spent watching my mom untangle bobbins from the sewing machine behind me. I told myself I was a grown up smart girl (sometimes I use the honor graduate on my diploma just to convince myself and my dad I'm not an idiot. They don't have special ed in college :)) and event idiots could sew. But I still couldn't make myself jump into the deep end. Using my moms machine is out of the question as I'd be forced to move into a storage unit to pay for repairs or God forbid to replace the Bernina. So, I went out and bought the cheapest sewing machine I could find. Walmart special $78.88 (more on the value proposition later).

I got it home and was pleased to find it came out of the box with no assembly needed. I read every word of the manual that came with it and confidently thread the needle (I think they took out about 20 steps since I was 12.) I even got the bobbin in! Compelled by my successful maneuvering of the thread through the threading maze, I grabbed my fabrics (also a great deal at Walmart). Stitch, stitch, stitch this is going great!!

Wait.... that sounded kind of weird... oh well it stopped... stitch, stitch, stitch... umm...why isn't the stitching moving forward any more??

Yes I had gotten myself from start to huge tangle in 3.2 seconds. But I didn't give up. After I spend about 2 hours undoing all the sewing I'd done (It takes 22 times longer to rip seams than to make them.) I got back to it. One long weekend and some uuuuugly seams later I have myself three specimens of a dog bed.

The fist was big and meant for Stoli:



The second was an attempt at a matching bed for Bunni but wound up over stuffed. I'm convinced the cats will like it eventually:


I then learned the joys of studying all those "Sew Easy" patterns at Joanns They really are so easy that you dont even need to buy the pattern. Here is attempt number 3:



Poor Stoli has to go to the vet tonight to be spade tomorrow. However, I think she might have found a home already (I wont mention who in case they back out :) Wish her luck!