I’d like to introduce Woody, our retired racing greyhound who we adopted 6 years ago, Woody will be 10 next week. Woody is often on my photos of my makes as he loves to be around me while I sew and will often lie on the floor next to me while I make things.
Woody in his racing days was known as Farron Nodrog (Noddy for short) but when he came to live with us we changed his name to Woody.
I knew I had to rescue a greyhound after hearing all about them at one of their awareness stands outside of Sainsbury’s years before we actually adopted. Greyhounds can be treated very badly and are often “disposed of” in horrific ways if they don’t perform well or if they can’t be rehomed. A lot of people don’t like them because of the way they look, but I absolutely love them and their funny ways, they’re certainly very different to other dogs and surprisingly very, very lazy (until they see something small and furry to chase).
Originally we set out to have one greyhound and the one we chose was Nikki, or Bens Nikita as she was known in her racing career. Nikki was a lovely happy greyhound and absolutely no trouble to look after. After having her I kept looking on the Hall Green greyhound trust website and getting drawn to “Noddy” and wondering why no one wanted him? I researched Nikki’ s career and found out her owner had another dog Farron Nodrog. Well that was it! I couldn’t have Noddy without a home so, we ended up with them both!
They absolutely loved each other. Nikki was definitely the boss and Woody would do anything for her and would always protect her. We’ve been camping with them, on a ferry and on lots of very long walks.
Very sadly almost 2 years ago we had to have Nikki put to sleep because she had pancreatic cancer and got very, very poorly. It was such a horrible time and really difficult for us all to accept.
Now it’s just Woody. We love him lots and we were all very sad when we lost Nikki, but we were also sad for Woody as he lost his best friend, and how can you explain that to a dog. Woody seems to have adapted to being the only dog and he seems happy with his human family, although he’s not too keen on Alan the hamster.
Nikki and Woody used to share a huge bed and since Nikki has gone Woody likes to sleep upstairs with us (greyhounds are a bit awkward on stairs and Woody didn’t learn to climb stairs until Nikki died, because he wanted to be with us!).
The bed was huge and ugly and made the bedroom look a mess. I couldn’t find another one I liked at a reasonable price and so we lived with it.
Then I had a bit of a lightbulb moment and realised I could make a cover! But first it needed to be smaller, so out came the electric bread knife!
Due to the lumps and bumps I kept the old cover as an under cover and then made a piped cushion cover with a zip fastener to go on top. I used this fantastic Little striped cushion tutorial from Peg Baker on You Tube. I bought the piping but the tutorial covers making your own.
My Singer machine has stopped working again (it lets me down so much and as yet singer haven’t got back to me) so I used my 19 year old seized up Janome which I only have a standard foot for so I struggle with going straight by the zip, but the messy bits are hidden as is the very orange zip! Also a piping foot would have been nice but I managed without.
The zip is actually a tent zip I think! It was the perfect length and I got it in a £9.99 mixed bag of 65 zips from eBay! The only thing I did different from the tutorial was put some fabric end pieces on the end of the zips as I didn’t want it to rip when I have to keep taking it off to wash!
Piping was much easier than I expected and I love the finish it has given the bed. I used a cheap duvet cover for the fabric which is similar to our covers on our bed.
I added a handle so it’s easier to move it round to Hoover under it.
I’m really pleased with it and it looks so much better in the bedroom than the old one which bent up the walls!
I think woody likes it, now he’s got over the fact it’s a little bit smaller and smells nice instead of all doggy.
I have a few Woody related makes on my to sew list, so I’m sure you’ll be seeing him again soon.
Boys and Chicken's Sewing Adventure 