I'm no seamstress, so luckily these DIY dog toys don't require any experience!
Have you ever cleaned out your closet and realized you only wear two of the fifty pairs of jeans you own? How about, you only have four pairs of jeans but now you're down to three because unlucky number four split when you sat? Or are you a more unfortunate soul like myself, where you discovered your fake-denim jeans from Factorie have become rather... see-through over the last year? Yup, that was me. And nope, I am definitely not sharing that rather humiliating story here, but you can use your imagination.
So as one does, I kept my ill-fitting jeans in my cupboard, knowing one day I'd be able to make good use of them. Time passed and along came my best friend and number one procrastinating supporter, Pinterest. I found a gem, tried it out, loved it and decided to share it with y'all.
DIY Jean Toys
Time: 15 minutes
Difficulty: easy
Yield: 2 medium toys per pair of jeans
You will need:
pair of jeans (fake or real denim)
sharp scissors
string
elastic band
pointy pliers
Cut one leg of your jeans into four long strips. If you have fashionable rips and holes (like mine), give them a rough stitch together before doing this step. And when I say rough, I mean it. There's a reason I'm an architect, not a seamstress. You won't see this amendment when you're done and your dogs won't even notice.
Next, lay your pieces out like a cross and temporarily tie the ends together with an elastic band (I used a hair band because I'm resourceful like that). Secure it tightly with the string (or if you're strange like me, use a piece of random wool you have lying around). Make sure this is good and tight for extra durability. Remove the elastic.
Next comes the fun part. Bring out your inner girl/boy scouts: you're going to be tying a series of crown knots. Fancy right? Simply put, each strip gets placed over the next and the last one gets pulled through the first, creating a bunch of loops. If you remember the colourful scooby-doo wire days, then this should come naturally to you. Otherwise, check out this super helpful link for a quick video.
Oh, make sure your tied bits are facing up. This ensures that they'll be hidden inside the toy, rather than being exposed. Once yours looks like the one above, pull all the pieces really well until you have a nice tight little knot. Congratulations, you passed level one of girl scouts!
Repeat this process until you pretty much can't. It honestly took me two tries before I got the knack of it, then I was a pro. If you're short to average height, don't expect a very long toy in the end. Mine was about 17cm long and works well with my large dogs.
If you've used your arm strength to pull the knots tightly, you should have a pretty durable little toy. When you can't tie further, I recommend cutting the end strips to be a little over 2cm long for this last step.
Take each end piece with your pointy nosed pliers (I'm well experienced in knowing the names of things) and shove it in a gap below. This took a lot more effort than the actual tying of the knots for me. I did find that the end pieces came out after five minutes of my dogs chewing them, but the toy did not fall apart. If you shove the pieces in hard enough, this hopefully won't happen.
Voila! You're done. I felt super impressed with myself and Beanie and Bailey absolutely loved them, even though they were perfectly imperfect. It's the thought that counts. So far, they're only half destroyed and it's been five hours. I would rate myself a solid 9 out of 10. Good job, Lauren.
Original tutorial: SewHistorically
