A soft place to land: Eden Prairie teen sews beds for rescued dogs

When the Rohde family of Eden Prairie adopted their dog, Opal, they gave her a new start in life. 

Opal’s adoption in February from Warrior Dog Rescue gave the Rohdes a new beloved family member. 

It also raised awareness for 15-year-old Fiona Rohde about the many needs of rescued dogs, and it led to extra care and comfort for many of the other dogs at Warrior Dog Rescue still waiting for forever homes.

Rohde is a student at Veritas Scholars Academy, an online classical school. As part of her National Honor Society project, she used her sewing skills to design and create dog beds for Warrior Dog Rescue. 

Warrior Dog Rescue is a nonprofit organization in Savage that rescues and finds homes for abandoned, abused or neglected dogs. Many of the dogs come from overcrowded Alabama shelters and harrowing circumstances to find new homes in Minnesota. 

Between February and May, Rohde was able to sew and fill 20 beds for Warrior Dog Rescue’s May intake of dogs.

A stitch of inspiration

The inspiration for Rohde’s project began when her uncle, an employee of La-Z-Boy in Edina, gave her 16 boxes of fabric samples the furniture store was planning to discard. 

She has been sewing since she was in kindergarten and decided to turn the samples into dog beds to donate to Warrior Dog Rescue. 

“I love to sew and I wanted to take my skills and also benefit the community,” she said. The project was “a way to give back to the dogs and the amazing people who help them day in and day out.” 

Rohde credits her grandmother, an avid quilter, with instilling her love of sewing.  “When I was probably in kindergarten, my grandmother taught me how to make my first baby quilt and then kept teaching me from there. I took the skill that she taught me and kept going, so now I make clothes and the beds and things like that.” 

Although she has always loved animals, “once I got a dog, it was a new connection and I saw I could help those animals. It was like a newfound passion.”

Crafting comfort

Rohde sorted through all of the La-Z-Boy fabric samples and arranged them to create pleasing patchwork designs based on patterns and colors. 

In addition to sewing, Rohde is also a painter and an artist. “I liked designing and laying out colors,” she said. “It was fun finding fabrics that go together but are also different enough.”  

She also thought about the function of the beds. They have no zippers or buttons that could harm dogs or that the dogs could destroy. Instead, she called upon a design she had used in the past for decorative throw pillows. Designed like an envelope, with overlapping panels that cover the opening, the covers are safer for the dogs, provide cost savings and were less time-consuming to sew. 

The outer cases and inserts can be machine-washed separately. Rohde added tags of her own design with washing instructions.

After some trial and error, the sewing of the pillow covers went fairly quickly. 

Through her grandmother’s connections, Rohde received donations of batting and scraps from many quilting groups. “Quilters have lots of scraps they don’t like to throw away,” she said. 

She used the donated scraps to fill inner pillowcases that she inserted into the decorative outer covers. 

This step proved challenging.

“It was a very long process cutting them into little pieces. My mom and grandma helped a lot, and my best friend came over and spent a day helping me cut up a bunch of batting,” she recalled. 

Even with help, Rohde estimates filling the inner cases took hundreds of hours. “I tried to find clever methods to cut faster, but nothing worked better than just a pair of scissors,” she said. “I listened to a lot of audiobooks and music.” 

Rohde was also pleased she was able to keep the materials she used out of landfills. When she shared her creations with her grandmother’s quilting group, ”they were very happy that their quilting batting got to be used, instead of ending up having to be thrown away,” she said. 

In addition, La-Z-Boy has arranged for all of their store samples across the country to be donated to Rohde for her dog beds.

Continuing the journey

Her project is now called Pillows for Pooches, and it has expanded beyond her original purpose. She plans to continue sewing and donating dog beds to shelters like Warrior Dog Rescue. She also hopes to make some beds available for purchase to help fuel ongoing donations. 

“That way I can keep investing in supplies and equipment and equipment maintenance,” she said.  

Rohde plans to study nursing in college and says she hopes her sales could help her to save money for college.

Warrior Dog support specialist Erin Nordstrom sent Rohde a text shortly after the May intake complimenting Rohde’s handiwork. “I’m seriously amazed by how awesome these beds are. All of our fosters are wanting one for their dogs, so they are flying off our shelves,” Nordstrom wrote.

Growing through giving

Pillows for Pooches did more than refine Rohde’s sewing and design skills; she also grew personally through the project that she balanced along with her regular schoolwork and other activities. 

“I’ve never done a project of this scale before,” she said. “I got to see how so many things are connected, and all the relationships it takes and all the people it takes to make a single dog bed.” 

Her biggest challenge was “sticking to it,” she said. “I got frustrated a lot, especially with the batting because it was taking such a long time. I definitely had to take a break a few times. It was getting very tiring to cut so much and barely fill a pillow.”

“It also taught me to keep going,” she said. “Because I was committed to Warrior Dog Rescue and to the National Honor Society, I had to keep going with it, which was definitely really satisfying in the end to see that I did it. I stuck to it and completed it, which was really hard to do.” 

She said other young people can make an impact on their communities by finding their passions and using them to help others. “Try to find a skill that you have and are passionate about … and try to make it to the best of your ability,” she said. “Also, just make something beautiful. I could easily make dog beds that aren’t pretty, but to bless people and their dogs with something beautiful that is going into their homes has been a really fun, cool experience.”