Creative Day - Dog Bed and Collar

Today I was really inspired to sew something, after a long time of only knitting. One reason is Lisek. who is mastering lying on his own bed at the moment. It is part of training him to be quiet while staying home alone: to assign him his very own place and to forbid him to lie anywhere else.

Also, he gets all his treats in his bed now, which is why it quickly looks pretty horrible and has to be washed. As we had bought only one bed I decided to make him another one, in order to be able to wash either one. There was so much nice fabric to choose from, I decided on one strawberry pattern and one with white hearts on green. I filled it with little plastic balls, which I sew an inlay for, so that I can still wash the outer parts.


If you want to make a bed yourself:

You cut two big pieces measuring 100 and 70 cm,
two stripes measure 110 x 15 cm
two that measure 80 x 15 cm

Then you sew the fitting stripes to the first big piece, putting right side onto right side. Make sure that the stitching of all four pieces meet, in order to close all the gaps. When you are finished, you close the sides, also by making the stitches meet the stitches from the upper part. After that you sew the bottom part to it, right side facing right side, but make sure you leave a rather big gap you can later close with the help of buttons, if you like.

Sew all the sides to the top

Leave a gap for the inlay or filling - maybe bigger than this 

The inlay can be made the same way, but actually, I just took a big piece of cloth that measured 220 x 80 cm and joined all the sides except for one whole on the side, to fill it with material, and then closed the "gap". Here I used a zigzag stitch in order to make it really stable and flexible at the same time, so none of the horrible little pastic balls escape.

That's my inlay

It was quite a hassle to put the inlay into the cover, as I had made the whole a little bit too small. In the end I succeeded and made a poor puppy lie on the bed. I think it will take Lisek some time to love it as much as his other bed, as he is not used to dig a little whole into his bed, but I think he will like it eventually. It looks super cute to see him lie in it already.

Another thing I made today was a new collar for the little one, fitting his turquoise leash that he already has. I also like the fabric for the collar a lot. If you want to make a collar for your dog as well, be sure to get all the extra parts, like the metal ring and the latch. To make it a secure collar, you need to sew in squares like I did here. That way there is no danger of the seam to rip open. I took another collar I really like as a model.

Still not sooo comfortable

... but being a dutiful dog, Lisek still stays on his bed, as told

Better already....