That Time I Made a Dog Bed

A dog teaches a boy fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down. --Robert Benchley

My modified Loro Vest has been coming along in leaps and bounds. Now that I've finished the one side, the second side is much more straightforward, and I think I might have a bit of yarn left over to do a bit of finishing along the front edges. It's been going so well that I was pretty sure I'd be finished by this weekend.

And then my goldfish brain kicked in and I decided I'd make Seymour a new bed.

I suppose it wasn't really a last-minute decision. Seymour's bed has been slowly falling apart for the last couple of months and we haven't really found a bed we liked enough to replace it. I really want to be able to wash the bed, because dogs are dogs and no matter how often we wash his paws and clean him up, the dog bed will end up smelling like a dog bed. I'd been tinkering around in my head about how I could make him a bed with a removable cover that could be unzipped and washed.

The two things standing in my way were:

1. I hate installing zippers.
2. My sewing machine needs a really good servicing, and I just don't have the time or gumption to sit down and do it.

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I came across this video, which I thought might just work:

On Thursday afternoon, I stopped in at the thrift shop and found an old fleece pullover for $1.50. I put it on the chair that contains all of the other things I keep meaning to do... papers to file, new socks to put away, return shipping labels to get rid of... and I figured I'd get to it when I felt the inspiration to do so.
And then, suddenly on Friday night, I jumped up and got out my sewing box and got to work. I sat through a couple of crime shows and a Graham Norton episode while I handstitched and stuffed and re-stitched and re-stuffed. I realize that not everyone does Friday night like I do, but hey, there are worse things I could be getting up to...
And then, by the end of the night, Seymour had a new bed, and he liked it so much that he kept getting into it each time I tried to get a photo of it:

I had to wait till he was outside to get a proper finished photo:

I put a zipper into the neckline so that I could open it up and take the stuffing out of the "arms," but there is currently no way to get the stuffing out of the centre part. I haven't quite figured out how I'm going to do that yet, and I think I need to take another week before I get brave enough to install yet another zipper in there somewhere.

I was a little worried that it was going to be too small, but Seymour is making it work. Dude loves his bed:

I think if everyone got as good night sleep as this dog does, what a wonderful place it would be.

So, that's done. I guess I can settle down now and finally finish this vest. Except... one of the local yarn shops has their yearly sale on, and I sort of forgot that I said I wasn't going to go and I kind of brought home some new yarn. But it was 70% off and it's enough to make a top and you can't get six skeins of anything for $24.97...

Whatever. It's pretty and it was inexpensive, and like I said, I could be getting up to worse things... like knitting my dog a new sweater. Now there's a thought...