Trudy The Pig

Dear Mom,

When my stepdaughter Robyn was five or six years old she was hit by a van—nearly took her life. Trudy the pig was given to her—the stuffed animal became her companion in healing and has remained in her possession some 30 plus years. Robyn gave Trudy to her daughter Logan. One of their dogs got a hold of Trudy and made quite a mess of her—that and the fact Trudy’s 30 years of wear was showing.

Robyn asked me if I’d mend Trudy for Logan for Christmas. She handed me the pathetic looking pig. I now realized it was Trudy’s insides that could be found all around the house. I happily agreed to sew up her holes. After careful inspection, I saw Trudy was blind, missing an ear and her tail was gone. The hind legs were bandaged so Trudy was crippled too! Her nose had been replaced and a big hole was under her belly.

Here’s Trudy in her before condition: I searched for material to match her original nose, the under hooves of Trudy’s legs, and the inner part of her ears. Trudy came along with me to the store to match the pink—or what was supposed to be pink fur—and I found some pink fleece and felt. Robyn indicated Trudy had blue eyes and I found some of those too.

Mending Trudy started with replacing the hooves, and stuffing her hind legs. I hand sewed everything with the exception of recreating the ears—then they were hand sewn on to her head.

Some of my hand sewing with embroidery thread didn’t look so hot, so I sewed over it with pink yarn to hide the flaws. That required pushing the needle through with a thimble (figured out why those are necessary) and then pulling the needle through with a pliers. Now that made sewing fun.

After cutting out two heart shapes and sewing on one for Trudy’s belly and one for her leg, I moved on to making her ears. My husband thought it would look better for Trudy to have two new ears rather than leaving the old one in place. I had to agree, but it was painful to cut off the original ear. I felt like I was removing a finger off one of my childrens' hands. I decided to keep the original ear and placed it in a shadow box so that Robyn could have a piece of her Trudy.

Once Trudy was all stitched and mended, I gave her a bath with some upholstery stain remover. Using a small brush, the dirty matted fur started to come back to life—as best that could be expected anyway. I sprinkled Trudy with baby powder and she looked happy—and I hoped Robyn and Logan would feel the same way.

Seeing both their faces at Christmas and listening to their screams, “Trudy’s back!” after Logan removed Trudy out of the box made it worth all the time and effort in restoring Trudy.

Although I’m hear to tell you, I wouldn’t do that for just any pig.

New Trudy