Doggy Gets His Day

Remember Doggy? Doggy who escaped the prison of my clothing trunk? I decided to bite the bullet and attempt a stuffed-animal repair. This hole on his back seemed the real problem.

I had to stop sleeping with Doggy about 35+ years ago because his stuffing was leaking out of that hole you see above. The stuffing was grainy, like sand.
I opened up the seam along his back. My plan was to remove the stuffing in his torso, make an enclosed fabric pouch and insert it in that part of him, filling it with batting, and leaving his head and legs alone.

He used to be furry. Hardly any fur left!

I quickly realized that wouldn't work. All the stuffing had to come out. It was nasty. The lady who had made Doggy for me when I was a baby had used some sort of brown foam. It had degraded over the years, and some of it actually was just like dirt or sand.

I did everything in the wrong order. Before removing all the stuffing I planned to give the frayed part of his back some support by ironing a little piece of fusible interfacing on its under side, sticking the nose of the iron through the seam opening. The stuffing interfered and made a mess. But worse, after removing all the stuffing, here's what that white interfacing already looked like! It was filthy!

I remembered what the ladies on The Repair Shop did. They always removed all the stuffing. Then they always gently washed the animal. I gingerly picked off that interfacing, and gave Doggy's empty body a wash.

One side of his tale is not salvageable. 

There's nothing left of his ear linings.

And I decided I needed to do something about his eyes. What did they used to look like? 

I removed him from his bath. What a pitiful old friend he now was!

You can tell from all the stitching that he was handmade.

The next morning Doggy was dry. 

Here's a photo of the stuffing pouch

 I constructed for his torso.

I had a good bit of white batting that I put into his head and legs. Then I inserted the empty pouch, positioned it, and filled it with batting too. 

I had just enough!

Then a crisis occurred. It was time to stitch up the opening in his back. But when I started, the fabric was simply too fragile to sustain any tension for sewing it closed. It began to split, even though I'd ironed on a fresh piece of interfacing to support it.

I was discouraged and gave it up for the day.

This morning I returned to Doggy and his surgery. I pondered. The thing is -- I don't really care much about how Doggy looks. He's supposed to look old. I care more about being able to hold him again, to sleep with him snuggled up to me again. I'd already removed the offending stuffing, so that was taken care of. But how to close up his back? I knew I did not want a brand new panel of stuffed-animal-fur on half of his body; that wouldn't be Doggy. In the end, I opted for an unattractive but supportive solution. I used needle and thread to stitch the seam closed, also going into the fabric further down on both sides, to spread out the tension.

Poor Doggy! I couldn't leave his back exposed like that. I pondered putting something over his back: a saddle? He's not a horse. A little coat? A vest? I draped some of this polka-dotted fabric over his back, and immediately I knew what Doggy needed. He needed a cape! After all, he's my super-hero for surviving all these years!

This is the same fabric I chose for his new ear liners, and to cover the side of his tail.

 

I also removed his eyes and used some felt to make new ones.

That's how they looked long ago!
 He's supposed to look like he's snoozy
and his eye lids are drooping down.

It does help to have things on hand, 

as a long-time crafter, to find solutions like this.

Doggy is looking quite dapper, I think! He loves his cape. I may make him a better one that fits smoother, but for now, this will do just fine!

One thing the ladies on The Repair Shop always do is to keep any little damaged parts of the animal, put them into a little cloth pouch, and put them inside the animal before they close him up, so that no part of the animal is lost. Isn't that sweet? So I took Doggy's old eyes and slipped them inside one of his ears under the liner -- just where I used to keep secret notes 50 years ago. 

Welcome back, sweet Doggy! You can sleep with me again from now on.

 (provided Adam doesn't mind!)