What to do with a hole in your couch?!

Excitement never ends at our house.  Last night our rather large Tortie got herself stuck INSIDE the couch.  It is a older, sleeper couch that has a fold down drink holder in the middle.  It is usually covered up with a brown suede slipcover, that my kids somehow seem to pull off the couch every single day. Since my daughter was sick she had pulled down the center part, so she had a place to put her drink.  

             Ignore the early 90s print.  That it is why the couch is normally covered with a slipcover. 

There is a gap where Reeses could get in, but once she got in she was too big to climb out between the metal black bars on her own.  I tried to reach in and help her out, but I could not get a good grip on her and she ended up backing up deeper into the couch.  She was meowing like she was in distress and my daughter was in tears. 

This is the area where she was stuck. It is a good 24 inches or more down from the gap where she climbed in.  Its hard to make it ou in the picture but the area is only about 5 inches wide. You can kind of see the sleeper part of the couch which was in her way. If the sleeper  was pulled out though, it could have crushed her.

Finally it seemed like the only way out was to cut a hole in the back.  Since I did not want to cut  her, I moved over a few inches  from where she was and made a verticle cut,  I ended up on the wrong side of the wooden frame.  She still couldnt get out, so I had to make the hold a big bigger but cutting over horizontally about 6 inches.  The hole is an L shape about 8 inches high and 6 inches wide.

We were all relieved when she was free.  Now what to do with the hole in the couch? I will probably have to get some industrial thread and try and sew it closed.   I  put the bookcase that holds toys back where it was located which covers it for now. IF the slipcover is on, it is covered up, but I will need to do something with the hole.  Any ideas?

When I was taking pictures this morning, Reeses decided to come over to see what I was doing.  I took a picture from this angle because it shows her size.  I dont know how she fit in there.