WHAT was I thinking?

You may recall that I purchased fabric at Ikea to make a dog bed cover for the fancy new beds that we got for the dogs… I must have been having delusions of grandeur to think that I could sew a bed with 4 round bolster edges AND piping, because I couldn’t.

Oh sure, I tried. Saturday I made the pattern. Sunday I cut the fabric to make piping and then started pinning the pattern onto the fabric. Frustrated moment #1 out of, oh… maybe 100, when I couldn’t get the pins through the doubled fabric. They stuck in my fingers pretty good though.

I moved the big table and lay the fabric out on the floor again, this time single sided and started pinning. That went fairly well, except for getting dozens of pin pricks.

I don’t think I mentioned yet that I was tired – bone tired, and my head was full of cotton. I really didn’t want to be doing this, but forced myself to keep going.

Cutting went well and didn’t shed any blood.

I moved onto the piping – this would be easy I thought, after all, I’ve made piping dozens of times. My sewing machine seemed to be possessed by stubborn demons who tangled the thread and jammed the machine countless times. By the time I gave up I was near tears, not to mention so frustrated that I wanted to burn the fabric (but figured with my luck I’d burn the house down while I was at it).

I remembered wise words from my doctor – listen to your body and let it rest if it has to. Thinking back to the weeks of busyness I knew I was done for so crawled into bed and watched old movies. When I finally emerged from my quiet cocoon I felt great! Instead of frustrated tears I just felt mellow.

The dog bed still waited though… Monday morning I pinned one side – it was difficult, but I didn’t get too frustrated. Carm oiled my machine which banished the jamming demons. I got the first side sewn by the end of the day.

Tuesday morning I started back at it, determined to get it finished. Pinning, sewing, seam ripping, sewing, swearing, more swearing and then it was done. I will say that I’m under-whelmed by the result.

 

The other thing I didn’t think about: wet dog slobber spots show up as if they were outlined in fluorescent crayon. I never even thought of that. The old fleece blanket never showed a thing…

 

Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning do to do afterward. ~Kurt Vonnegut