From Curtains to Dog Bed

Hello friends of first Fridays!  It’s your friend TJ from Studio Mailbox here to bring you the monthly tale of my latest sewing triumphs.  This time I came up with a relatively simple way to transform an old set of curtains into a doggie pillow and I’m excited to share it with you!

Heather and I got puppies around the same time.  We’ve had many conversations about the trials we’ve faced with these 4-legged critters of ours, mainly what a handful they can be.  Lucky, my German short-haired Pointer, has been with me since I decided to make my first quilt, and has stuck his nose in more than one of my projects, not to mention when I thought he ate a pin.  Needless to say it’s about time something got made especially just for him!

The house we bought came with an old set of curtains.  At first I was going to donate them but then I figured it would be a shame to waste two giant pieces of material, especially since they could be transformed into something useful – like a dog pillow!  How hard could it be?  Sew them up and make a pillow, right? Getting started would have been easier if the dog wasn’t laying on them.  Look at him!  It’s like we had the same creative vision…

First of all these “curtains” were really more like drapes.  An ugly brown polyester, they were thick and heavy but still soft.  I suppose they made pretty decent curtains as far as blocking out the light.  They’d have been perfect if I lived in a drafty castle.  Alas, I do not live in a fortress but instead in a typical Minnesota split level.  The lower level of the house stays chilly year round.  Exactly why we were in need of another dog pillow.

For months we have been dragging Lucky’s dog bed up and down with us every time we’d go downstairs to watch TV.  Can you believe this kind of insanity?  We’d have to bend our bodies over at the waist, reach out and grab the dog bed, and drag it behind us spreading dog hair through the house like fertilizer.  This process happened with tea in one hand and popcorn tucked in the elbow of the other.  Then it would happen in reverse, dragging the dog bed upstairs with us when it was time to turn in for the night.  Up we’d go, empty ice cream dishes and spoons balanced like a circus trick in one hand, dog bed spreading hair like dandelion fluff in the other.

“Let’s just buy another dog bed,” my husband would say.

“I’m going to make him one from those old curtains,” I’d answer.  Someday.

Well someday finally came!  Today I finally put my nose to the grindstone and did it.  I even went so far as to make a pillow out of one curtain and a removable cover out of the other.  For those of you who actually groom your dogs, maybe you don’t need to get carried away like that.  Lucky is a hunting dog, however, and enjoys running through swamps, rolling in dead things, and his ultimate favorite pastime –  mudding.  You get the idea.  It’s imperative that I can wash this easily or else it wouldn’t even be worth the effort of making.

The hardest part was deciding on the size.  I eyeballed the bed we already have for him and saw that it was roughly the size of the curtains folded in half.  I hacked off the thick hem from the bottom although it probably wasn’t necessary and could have been left like a giant seam on the inside.  Then I folded it in half, pinned the three sides and sewed up the edges leaving an opening to stuff it.  The inner pillow was easier than the cover.

For the cover I hacked off the heavy hem from the bottom of the other curtain, folded it in half again, and put in a zipper.  I struggle with zippers.  This was especially tricky since I was trying to get it into something that was folded in half instead of sewing it into two flat separate pieces of fabric.  I prevailed however, with only one big pucker and veering off the zipper twice.  Another moment when I reassured myself, it’s for a dog.  Lucky would lay in a pile of stinky laundry so I’m rather confident he’s not going to be critical of my zipper installation.

After getting the zipper in I really showed what I’m made of.  This where we separate the men from the boys.  You ready for this?  I unzipped the zipper a little before sewing up the other sides!  BOOM!  You really only have to sew something shut six or seven times with the zipper closed to remember that part.

One of the things I ask myself all the times is, is this going to make my life easier or harder? The extra dog pillow is definitely going to make my life easier.  In less than two hours time a set of old curtains were transformed needing only a zipper and a bag and a half of stuffing.  Success!!  Lucky is asleep on it right now next to me, his head hanging off the entire thing and resting on the hard floor.  Apparently his vision was a little different than mine.  Too bad it didn’t come with an operator’s manual.

TJ Goerlitz is a mixed media artist who pretends to be a seamstress whenever possible.  Come connect with her on her site, Studio Mailbox, her Facebook page, or in Pinterest.  Join her on the first Friday of every month where she shares her latest sewing tales with the readers of The Sewing Loft.