About Me

I started this blog at the urging of my AK friends to help relay my moving to WA. I'm hoping this blog will evolve into a place where I share my home-decorating/remodeling, craft projects, and adventures in dog-ownership.

Thanks for reading!!

Christina - wrangell.penguin@gmail.com

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Taggie!

Cutest kid, this is my taggie actually being used!!!
 "Hud thanks you for teething relief"

So first Taggie... If you want an explanation of what a taggie actually is...
Conclusion is my friend Vanessa was having her first baby, and I of course wanted to commemorate the event by making something crafty.  And I've been working on my sewing skills, and this project came about.  (Also I had verification from a friend and my mother that taggies were totally "in" at the baby showers they'd been attending.)

Here's the process. I did...
My magazine pattern

Chalk drawing

Adding fleecy fabric to the other side

Lots of pinning, all my "too long" ribbons in there.


Finished!

So cute, have to show Hudson again!!!

Monday, December 20, 2010

Friday, December 10, 2010

Large Dog Bed

I've been wanting to make a dog bed for my 2 beasts for a while.



This is what I've been collecting for this process: 5 dog beds and stuffing from the other bed that the dogs tore up, old jeans, random fabric, some sewing skills (mostly straight lines).

Looking at patterns online none of them really were meeting my needs, i.e. STRAIGHT LINES, simple pattern, using up my scraps.  I took one of the old dog beds, turned it inside out, and decided "I can do that"

You can kind of see the old dog bed underneath, I had a large piece of green fabric that I folded in half and marked it.

Next I sewed my long jean pieces together= I cut the legs off, cut/ripped them in strips, then sewed them together end to end, as you can tell not paying too much attention to perfection...

This was the end result "vision"
Now to combine my edges with the top and bottom.  I basically sewed one end of my jean strip to the halfway mark on my folded fabric.

[insert explanatory drawing here]

Then continued sewing around the "top", got to the other halfway in the green fabric, (changed the thread and bobbin), and went back to the first side.

With one side left to sew I had to figure out how I would get all the stuffing inside.  The dogs have a history of taking the zippers off beds, and buttons are just asking to be eaten.
In my mind I decided that I would add an extender piece of fabric, that would get folded inside and keep all the stuffing in the bed...

That's the inside, you can see the "flap" in the bottom right.
Except I attached it wrong, I could have gone back to fix it, but I didn't think the dogs would notice too much, and it would still work, just not as aesthetically pleasing as I wanted.

For those of you who might actually want to use a pattern, here are some ideas: http://www.doggiestylish.com/store/Free-Patterns-For-Dog-Accessories/Free-Patterns-For-Dog-Beds