Dog Bed Pillow Recover

This is Taffy, our 5 year old Boston Terrier. She is the sweetest, funniest dog and we love her. She is great with kids and is such a good dog. When she was a puppy, we had issues. We could not get her to obey and she was so naughty. She would never come when we called her so we had to be careful to never let her escape out the front door. A year later, we got another dog, figuring she was just bored and needed a playmate. They were double the destruction, but we did learn one key thing from having a second dog. He was much more alert and would at least respond to us when we called him. He would bark at noises where Taffy never did. Turns out, she wasn't just not listening to us, she couldn't hear us. Taffy is deaf.

Now that we know this and have signs for different commands, she is much better. We had to put our second dog up for adoption over the summer because of his issues with little kids (among other things), but we can never give up our sweet Taffy.

My husband makes fun of me because I had a dog tag made for her that says "I AM DEAF."  He will call her by that every once in a while and he thinks it is hilarious. I just figured if she ever did escape or get lost, that it would be useful information for whoever found her.

Although her deafness has its challenges, it has some advantages too. She rarely barks, and when she does it is usually at some weird reflection or when she just waking up from a dream. She sleeps through everything, the train, the doorbell, and weird noises that normal dogs might freak out about. We love it!

So anyways, the point of this post was to show you a pillow that I recovered for her.

A little while ago, we got her a fancy dog bed with soft fancy fabric and a pillow. She loves to get underneath things and cuddle in, so she gets inside her bed and sleeps underneath the pillow. Sometimes, besides hearing her snore, you can't even tell she is in it.

The problem with this "fancy" soft fabric was that is was so slippery, that the seam came apart and all the stuffing kept coming out and making a mess. We'd stuff it back in and close it up, but it would just come apart again.

So I found some cozy flannel fabric in the remnants section of the fabric store for a little over a buck and decided to just make her a new pillow.

 First I took all the stuffing out of the old one and saved it in a plastic bag. Then I doubled up my fabric and put the old pillow on top of it

 

Then I cut around it, leaving a seam allowance.

I sewed it all up, leaving an opening of about 6 inches.

I turned it right side out and then sewed two little "x's" into the top for tucks. I just eyeballed where these should go because it doesn't matter that much.

I shoved all the stuffing I had saved back in and then pinned the opening shut, being sure to fold the raw edges under.

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Then I just sewed the opening shut on my sewing machine, staying close to the edge, but not too close. Technically, I should have used thread that matched, but then you wouldn't be able to see it. I actually had to sew it twice because the first time I went too close to the edge and didn't catch both of the layers in some places.

Then it is done!

Super easy and quick. I think it only took me 20 minutes start to finish and that was with coming up from the basement (where my sewing table is) so I could take pictures in better light in between every step.

It fits perfectly and Taffy loves it. I had it down in the living room yesterday to see if she would use it and she lied down on it right away. I think that fact that I used the same stuffing that has her smell on it already helps. This morning when I went to let her out of her crate she was all cuddled underneath it. Success!! The best part is I won't have to clean up the stuffing every morning anymore :)

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