A while back we saw these Dog Duvets at a swanky DC pet shop. You can just buy the duvet cover to put over your current doggie bed or you can buy the DIY Kit which comes with a stuff sack that they suggest you put your old unwanted clothes in. Beautiful design and reusing your old clothes? Yay! Count me in! But the price tag said count me out! I think this is a great idea but I had old pillows at home and enough sewing skills to get the job done my self.

First I picked out a sturdy 100% cotton fabric. The fabric I chose was a home decor fabric from Joann’s (which was on sale!); I bought a yard and a half which came to about $24.00

Materials:

Two old pillows, one old pillow case, 1 1/2 yards of fabric (depending on the size of your dog), scissors, sewing machine, and a needle and thread.

The first thing you want to do is wash and dry your fabric! This is really important! You want to get all the sizing out of the fabric and see how much shrinkage there is before you do any cutting.

Now, cut open one of the pillows and divide the stuffing into four equal parts. When you cut open the pillow make sure you cut along one seam because you are going to need the case for the next step.

Take your two pillow cases and cut each one in half long-wise. Then turn them inside out and sew up the long side to create a tube. You should now have four empty pillow case tubes and four piles of stuffing.

Now comes the fun part! Take one section of stuffing and separate it out so it’s not all in one clump. Then Stuff it into one of the tubes! Go ahead and work the stuffing around in the case so it’s all even. Repeat until all four tubes are stuffed and sew up the open short end of the tubes.

Now for sewing the cover!

When I sew, I like to cheat; I really think it’s the best way to go. I don’t really use patterns and I never measure. But I think with a few simple tricks and some basic sewing knowledge I can muddle through any sewing project by cheating and no one is the wiser! … except maybe my old fibers teachers.

You do need a basic knowledge of how to use a sewing machine; which I am not going to go over right now. Assuming you know how to thread your machine I’ll move on.

I laid the fabric out on the floor and arranged the pillows the way I wanted them on top of the fabric. I then folded the fabric over the top of the pillows and cut off the excess fabric. Yay! No measuring! I made sure to overlap the two ends to create a pocket opening in the back of the dog bed where I will later be able to insert the pillows. Now sew the edges that will show on the pocket so you don’t have raw ends hanging about. I chose a pocket opening because I despise sewing zippers! Plus I didn’t want to risk a zipper scraping my hardwood floors!

This next step is the big cheat! Once again lay your fabric out and fold it over your pillows. You can now go around the outside pining and pushing the pillows into whatever shaped bed you would like. I chose a circular bed; it may sound more difficult that making a square bed but since you are now creating a guide to sew with, it isn’t much different at all.

Do you see how you have just created a guide to sew along? If you want, you can use a pencil or disappearing ink marker to trace along your pin line. Now remove your pillows from the overlap pocket opening and sew along your pin line.

One trick that many new sewers don’t know about is that when you sew a curve you have to cut slits to allow the fabric to bend. So after you sew your seam, cut slits before turning the cover right-side out.

You can now turn your cover right-side out and stuff with your pillows.

Wiggle the pillows around so that they fit properly in the cover. If you have any empty or loose spots just fill them in with more stuffing or old clothing. I then used a needle and thread to close up the pocket; nothing fancy, just tacked it down in three spots.

Flip it over and let your little buddy enjoy!

Bruce: “It’s a hard life, you know! I have to run to the window when I hear mysterious sounds, take my humans for walks, and make sure they get enough exercise by throwing balls to me. I’m just all tuckered out at the end of the day.”

Last Night I spent some quality time with a pattern, my sewing machine and most importantly, a seam ripper. This Halloween I decided to be adventurous and make our costumes from patterns. The first and last time I worked with a pattern (for sewing) was my seventh grade Home Economics class. It was a very square “blouse” with a doily looking collar. Not pretty!

Altering! That’s my thing! Although I will say that some of the technical things I am learning and brushing up on will probably come in handy on my next alteration project. I still hate patterns though!

So here is a little sneak peak into what I am making. Here is part of my boyfriends costume. Can you guess what we are going to be?

No? Well here is a photo of me testing out my hair style for my costume.

If you still don’t know… well, I’m sorry but we can’t be friends anymore. Please mail me the CD you borrowed. Your number will be deleted from my phone promptly.

I have always loved vintage fashion and lately have become obsessed with the hair and fascinators. Fascinators are a funny thing, they can be fabulous or disastrously hideous! I didn’t really know what a fascinator was until a year ago when my friend Thryn and I were looking for hair decoration ideas for her wedding day (you can read her Wedlog here). We had a lot of laughs searching the inter-net for fascinators! But I decided to try my hand at it and after a few of my own fascinator fails I came up with the one pictured above. I am quite happy with the look of it and I think I might try my hand at selling them!

It would be remiss of me not to mention all the inspiration I got for this from Etsy so here goes. A beautiful Rosette Fascinator from Giantdwarf. A simple and lovely Eco felt and YoYo flower headband from Luminous Mom. And a slightly different take, the VERA Feather Band from The Candy Thief.

Fanny pack’s, remember those hideous nylon sacks in colors that nearly blinded you? Or better yet the faux black leather! Yes! Mine was neon green with black zippers. Oh yeah! Haha!… *ahem* well recently I was watching It’s Me Or The Dog and my boyfriend pointed out Victoria’s awesome little doggy treat fanny pack which of course got me thinking. I scoured the inter-net to no avail, Victoria would not reveal her fanny pack provider. I found some (well, like two) cute fanny pack’s but they just weren’t quite right and I really don’t like spending money on something I can make my self. I have started testing out some patterns using felt and am pretty happy with results. It’s the perfect size for all the basics: wallet, camera, phone, pad of paper & collapsible pen. I think I am starting a new old trend here. FANNY PACKS, THE NEW MUST HAVE FOR SPRING! OK maybe not but at least I won’t have to carry around a purse!