Curl-up and Clive...

Clive is our 3 year old English Cocker Spaniel. I am pretty sure that no person on this earth has had such a loving, funny and great dog as this one!

In the light of it being pretty darn miserable outside, one of Clive's favourite things to do is curl up by the fire and nap the afternoon away (after eating and walkies, they are his MOST favourite), so I thought it was high-time that I made him a big, comfortable bed. 

The stipulation of this (and indeed my makes from now on) was that it had to be aesthetically pleasing. I cannot abide buying rubbish that is made so poorly and looks horrendous. So in view of my new thrifty, reuse and recycle attitude... I had an idea for using up some old scraps.

So I have been reading up on new techniques and quilt making has been on my mind. I hope to eventually take a small re-upholstery class in the UK and work with furniture and fabric that way, but until then I hope to reupholster an Ikea chair that I was given. A blog later in the year about that!

This is my first attempt at quilting and it took me a while to figure out efficient ways to cut out the fabric, without wasting a lot of time.

In hindsight, I did waste a lot of time. Now I realise that I if I hadn't used centimetres and just used the inches of my quilting ruler, I could have done the 5" multiple cuttings about 3 times as fast! You live and learn (and sulk, a little).


The bed:

Quite simply... I made a large pillow out of 2 old bed pillows. Dimensions: 100 cm x 60 cm. Removed the stuffing and refilled my own hand-made pillow.

I then stuffed this new pillow and sealed.

Making the bed cover, I had the scraps from my Dusk Dinner Date Cape from last year and thought that they would look quite the dapper-boy-dog-bed fabric. So for the top of the bed, I cut 15 squares of 21cm size. I then sewed them together with my trustee 1/4" presser foot into the checker board pattern.

For the bottom of the bed, I had a large piece of the blue and black houndstooth fabric, so I cut a 100 x 60 cm piece from it.

Now all I did was treat the massive pillow as such... I made the bed as if I was making an envelope cushion, a method I picked up from Martha Stewart here

After having a break from sewing and blogging at the end of last year, I now am back on track with sewing what I want to sew and making what I want to make. My 'Seamless Pledge' is well on track with a few patterns arriving yesterday. More on that later!

Techniques learnt: quilting
Time taken: 4hours
Cost: FREE!!
Seamless Pledge: Yes!

Thanks for dropping by!

Bundana 

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