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Sewing for National Pet Day
Sewing for National Pet Day
National Pet Day is April 11, and I'm celebrating by making my dog, Pearl, a new bed. Like most dogs, Pearl sleeps for hours and she'll snooze contentedly while I sew (if she's not rolling around in any quilt blocks I audition on my "design floor").
National Pet Day isn’t my only impetus for sprucing up Pearl’s bedding—I'm also in the mood for some spring updating. Her scruffy, brown bed doesn't fit with my green-grass-and-daffodil outlook.
Luckily, Summerfest by April Rosenthal of Prairie Grass Patterns matches my mood perfectly, and after perusing the Internet for patterns I decided to use it to make the 3 Dog Night dog bed from allpeoplequilt.com.
Pearl—who is a wire fox terrier—weighs in at 20 pounds, so I opted for the medium-sized bed. I didn't add the suggested piping but now wish I had—April's argyle plaid would look fabulous on the bias and I love this seemingly magic method of making continuous bias binding. I also think it would look fabulous with a line of hexagons snaking around the side.
The pattern was very straightforward and there’s a great graphic on the web site showing how to sew together the side and top and bottom rectangles at the corners.
The bed comes together quickly and I'm contemplating making others—I envision a cute bed that complements the decor in every room where Pearl snoozes (and that is a lot of rooms). By adjusting the sizes of the top and bottom and side rectangles this project could be adapted to fit any size dog. It could also be adapted to fit pre-made cushions, instead of the polyfill stuffing the pattern calls for. Finally, instead of basting the muslin pieces to the outer rectangles, you could make and stuff an inner pillow, then insert a zipper into the outer cover, making it simple to zip off for washing.
Have you done any sewing for your pets? Let us know if you've got any favorite projects to recommend, or just tell us about the pet who you'll be celebrating on National Pet day.
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