How To: Make a DIY Dog Collar Tutorial

A couple of months ago I was asked to do some work by the London Transport Museum as they were opening a new children's section of the museum and wanted some toy dog puppets as part of their promotions.

Well I had to make 6 or 7 a prototype and this one, which is the only one who looked sensible enough to be finished off, has been claimed by Patrick and named Rosette (Don't ask!!):

Ever since he 'claimed' her, he's been asking me to make her a collar, as I'd made one for Seren's enormous Dog, Kate, last summer (Kate was purchased by Seren, with her own money in a shop in Ireland, while we were on holiday and had to have her own seat in the car on the way back as she is so enormous!)

So I thought I would share the process with you.

You Will Need:

Tape Measure

Felt Scraps

Embroidery Thread

Small Piece of Ribbon

Small Piece of Elastic

Needle, pins, scissors

Sewing Machine (optional)

Instructions:

1. Have your dog/cat/teddy/cuddly toy/real animal (?!?!) at the ready

2. Measure your dog loosely round the next

3. My dog's neck size was 20", so I wanted to have 18" of felt and 2 inches of elastic. Patrick had chosen pink, purple and white as his colours, so I have 1.5" of white felt, 5" of dark purple, pink & light purple each and then another 1.5" of white felt, each piece is 1" thick. Lay them out on a larger piece of felt, which will become the back of the collar.

4. Either by hand or by machine, sew the ends of each felt piece to the backing - I chose to use a zigzag stitch with black thread. If you are sewing by hand a running stitch or back stitch would do fine.

5. Pin the elastic into one end of the collar, between the white felt at the top and the beige felt at the bottom. Then sew from the other end (leaving that end open) along the long side, across the elastic, making sure it's sewn in securely and back down the other long side. Leave the remaining short end open for the moment. Now cut away the excess backing felt, so you are left with only the 1" thick strip of double layer felt.

6. If you want to add a bone with a name on to your collar, this is the stage. So on another piece of felt embroider your dog's name and then cut around the name, shaping the felt into a bone shape. Pin this bone shape to another piece of felt and cut around that. Sandwich the ribbon in between the two bone pieces and sew round the outsides of the bone, I used a pale pink thread and a running stitch - it just needs to keep the bones together & keep the ribbon in place. Then thread the collar through the ribbon.

7. Finally thread the elastic into the open end of the collar and sew the end closed.

And you will have one dog collar, all ready to be worn! (And in my case, one VERY happy little boy!)

I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial. If you would like to reference it or link back, please feel free to borrow a couple of pictures, as long as you link back to this post, but please do not reissue the whole tutorial without prior permission.