Do you crochet? Do you love your pet(s)? Then you probably love to crochet for your pets, too. Wouldn’t your pet fancy a new crochet bed?
While I was waiting for the Dahlia CAL, I started itching to make something else. I had two balls of Bernat® Baby Blanket Big Ball Yarn Little Boy Dove and didn’t think a baby blanket would be needed any time soon. So I looked around the house and spotted a certain someone who loves me very much. Why don’t I crochet a fancy new bed for Al?
How do you crochet a fancy pet bed?
I did a quick search on Ravelry and found this lovely pattern. It is super simple and quick to crochet. I, of course, had to tweak it a little bit just to be difficult (original? I dunno…). Based on the recommended yarn quantities in the pattern, I didn’t think I had enough to follow it to a T. What can you do if that happens to you? Well, just make the base a tad smaller and then use up all of the rest of your yarn for the edge.
As you can see in the pictures above, I clearly did not have enough yarn to make a large enough bed with a wraparound padded edge. All right, it looks like Albert is getting a new crochet sofa bed instead! Problem solved. For some extra pizzaz, I bought two fake-fur pompoms to attach around the opening.
Apparently, my measurement estimating skills suck. Or maybe I just didn’t quite understand where the edging would attach to the base. The opening ended up being just wide enough to fit those two pompoms. Not a sofa bed, after all!
I can’t quite explain why, but I decided to add fabric-covered padding to the bottom of the base. I found a basic square seat pad at Michaels and figured I’d make it work. A couple of years ago, I ordered a body pillowcase online and it came with a hole. I kept it for some reason and now thought I’d put it to good use.
Welcome to my world of half-assing
I know there are a lot of perfectionists out there and I do admire your efforts, not to mention the flawless results. Would you invite me to join your ranks? I don’t think so. Certainly not after you see what I did with the padding. Check. It. Out.
Step 1. Turn the square into a circle
If you are a perfectionist, you don’t even want to know how I “measured” those rounded pieces. Let’s just say I tore off a section of the padding and cut very uneven pieces out of it.
Step 2. Sew pieces together
Can you see the fine stitching? I even used some contrasting thread just to show you. Yep, that’s me half-assing away. Don’t worry, no one will ever see it, and the cat sure doesn’t care.
Step 3. Forget to document step 3
Obviously, step 3 should be Measure and cut the fabric. Which is exactly what I did, see? Also, I’m not a fan of sewing but velcro is fun! I believe I used 16 pieces of velcro tape to attach the fabric to the padding.
Step 4. Admire the beauty
As you can see, it’s not exactly a circle and the fabric isn’t perfectly fitted. However, it goes on the bottom of a cat bed, so who gives a damn?
Step 5. Sew the padding to the base
As much as I dislike sewing, I actually did use this tedious method to put the covered padding and the crocheted base together. See the pretty pins in the picture? No, I didn’t use those prickly suckers.
Step 6. Sew the edge to the base
This step was pretty quick and easy and, as mentioned before, ended up surprising me with the width of the opening. I sewed on the pompoms and the fancy new bed was ready to be presented to the king himself.
You can find more pictures of the happy new bed-owner right here. Enjoy!
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