Piecemeal Projects: Dog bed cover from fabric scraps

You've probably realised by now that my puppy, Bridget, makes an appearance quite frequently in this little blog of mine! Well she is my furbaby, so she does get ~~spoilt~~ alot of attention in our household. Ok yes, she gets spoilt too.

She does have her moments though. Like the dog bed I bought her when she first came to live with us. She was a tiny 1.2 kilos (2.6 pounds) and was too small to even climb onto the bed! She spent the first few months sleeping on a towel on the floor.

She got bigger, of course and discovered sleeping on the bed was more comfortable than the floor. She also discovered a love of zippers. Well, of chewing them off anyway.

I decided to make a new cover for her dog bed, however, once I took off the old cover, I realised what a sorry state the bed was actually in. All the poly filling inside had moved around, leaving it looking like a right old mess.

Some re-stuffing was clearly in order.

I cut a decent sized hole in the top of the bed and then using the stuffing from some old polyester filled pillows.

I packed it firmly into the bed, trying to ensure it was even and not as lumpy!

Then using a simple stitch, I handsewed the hole back up. For extra strenth, I then blanket stitched over the edge.

Clearly the little miss was impatient to get her bed back. She decided to come and take a rest before I'd even put a new cover back on it!

Now for the cover.

To avoid the chewing off of any NEW zips, I decided to make a super simple pillow slip to cover the bed. Here's how:

Firstly, select your fabric. I used a dark coloured linen for the bottom and a patterned furniture fabric for the top. They were just some scraps I had in my sewing drawer.

Use the old cover as a template, cut a rectangle from your chosen fabric, adding a little extra for seam allowances.

Do the same for the other side of the cover, but this time, add extra for a seam allowance around all sides, as well as extra for 'tucking in' the slip. Oh yeah and it's a good idea to wash and IRON all your fabric before sewing.

Pin the insides of the fabric together.

Then sew together with the front 'good' sides facing in. You'll also need to fold the extra 'tucking' bit of fabric over and sew that into the sides. Think of a pillow case - I'm hopeless at trying to describe it, but get a pillowslip and turn it inside out if you need to work out the best way to do it!

If you have a serger, you can finish the edges of nicely. I don't, so i decided to do a zig-zag stitch around the sides as well as a straight stitch. Gives it some extra sturdiness.

Once you're done, turn it inside out and put the pillowform back inside, carefully tucking it into the extra flap of fabric.