bella's bed

Last quarter I was in a class called "Studio Production." I gave you a little info on the class and told you that I would do a post on the dog bed that I made. Well, I lied. Sorry about that. Here is the post, oh only 5 months later! :)

With the project, I was assigned a word. There were 3 words: eating, sleeping, and relaxing. I got "sleeping." I had brainstormed many ideas, such as, a sleeping bag or some curtains that would block out the light. But, I know when my idea is not quite right. It doesn't click. A few days and some heavy thinking later, I decided to make a dog bed. And not just any dog bed. This would be a dog bed for poor Bella, my mom's almost completely blind dog. She was having a lot of trouble finding her bed because the colors closely resembled the color of the floor. She needed her bed to have contrast so that what little vision she had left could find it easily. I chose to do a chevron pattern because it also helped give contrast.

This is how I laid out my stripes. I first grouped colors and then sewed the squares into half square triangles.

All of the half square triangles leaves you with a lot of dogears, but I think it's a beautiful mess. 

     

At this point, I realized that half of the stripes were going to be on the front and half on the back, and this is not what I wanted. So I split the colors and put some on the front and some on the back. Problem solved. Next both the top and bottom were quilted and then sewn together with a side panel and an invisible zipper. I wanted to make this washable, so the zipper was a must.

And here it is! All finished! The best part is that it actually works. Bella can find her bed so easily now. No more wandering aimlessly around the room hoping to stumble upon the bed for this girl.