I’m so sorry it’s been a while between blogs. So much has happened and unfortunately for me not much sewing. Work and home life have been my main focus and sadly my sewing has taken a back seat.
One of the best things that has happened in the past year is that our beautiful Zahlee girl has come into our lives. We adopted her about 8 months ago, she came with a lot of medical problems, one of those being sensitive skin. She was put on a course of steroids which did help, but the downside to those is it made her constantly hungry.
It wasn’t until my boys dressed her up in one of their t-shirts that I had the idea to make her a top. One of Zahlee’s triggers is grass. Grass makes her itchy, so she rolls in the grass to relieve the itch, which just makes her scratch more. I was hoping that a handmade top might feel nice on her skin and comfort her a little.
So I went searching for a pattern and I was lucky enough to find an awesome free PDF pattern by Sew a Little Seam.
This is such a quick and easy pattern. Although my first try wasn’t that successful, but that was due to Zahlee not cooperating when I was trying to measure her. She thought it was a great game of lets attack the measuring tape. I thought I had the measurements correct but it turned out way too big.
The next time I made sure I had plenty of snacks on hand when I went to measure her and the fit was perfect.
The top turned out even better than I had thought it would. Zahlee loves wearing her tops, she gets excited every time she sees me get one out and they work. Her scratching is drastically reduced whenever she’s wearing one of her tops and she seems more settled.
Zahlee has a best buddy that she hangs out with all the time
I couldn’t help myself, I just had to make him his very own top. I used super funky stretch faux leather from Lush Fabrics Australia and added my own applique to it. I think he looks super cool.
The tops are also great for our Tasmanian weather and they keep Zahlee cosy and warm during our cold winter nights.
If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook you would have seen my gorgeous girl posing with me in photos. For a while there she was happy to pose next to me but she’s very demanding and now insists on wearing a top for photos or she won’t pose. It looks like I will have to make us some matching outfits.
Hopefully I will get some free time soon to sew as I would love to make her some costume outfits. I think she’d look great wearing a shark top. Before I go I thought I’d share another great idea I had. I was given an old pallet to use as an outside dog bed. I made Zahlee a giant pillow to lie on and I used all my scrap pieces of fabric to fill it. It’s great as the stuffing and the pillow can all be washed in the washing machine and she loves her bed.
