A smart change to our dog beds

After a long time speaking to weavers and coaters here in Scotland, we have now acquired a new fabric, which we are slowly phasing in as cover for our nest cushions. Our Scottish weavers have produced a heavy duty woven Nylon fabric, which is heavier and stronger than our standard,  but with a PU coating on it. This means that it is softer and floppier to the feel and would probably not be suitable for the nest sides as some degree of fabric sturdiness is needed in these types of dog beds. But the fabric is perfect for the nest cushion, which comes with the luxury fleece on it. We wanted to make a softer and much more quiet nest cushion as an improvement on the previous ones. This is only for the Woven Surface nests as the Wipe Clean nests are already perfect and you can’t improve on perfection.

We are so proud to source more and more material in Scotland and as MUCH as we possibly can in the UK as a whole. Of course, at the end of the day, some of the raw materials that are used in UK to manufacture our fabrics ultimately come from abroad, but we aim to support British manufacturing to as large an extend as possible. Our dog beds are responsible for British jobs beyond the work done here at our Scottish premises and that should be a good thing.

One wishes that more things would be made in UK, but it can be a problem even for the consumers to buy British made. For some reason Mary Portas got a lot of criticism, but I think she did a splendid job with the Kinky Knickers. She showed that the full process of sourcing materials (she did well getting everything in UK), designing the garment and making the products can be done in UK. Maybe it is not a get rich quick method that so many people are looking for and dreaming about, but it’s REAL jobs and REAL work. There are no free lunches and hard work is the only route for most of us. I loved the Kinky Knickers story, especially when Mary Portas was interviewing for recruits for the sewing jobs. There were young people there, who had more or less given up hope of a job and who had tremendous potential. Because of the TV programme the public bought a hell of a lot of these British made knickers and sales went sky high. Several people here, including Yours Faithfully had never made dog beds 15 years ago, but are now experts. Funny how life moves.