Sew: DIY Custom Fit Thrifty Dog Coats {Men’s Shirt to Two Dog Coats Refashion}

Mummy Ask & I went and visited our local Red Cross Shop for materials. We found these great, western style checked men’s shirts with pearl snaps and knew they would be fabulous for dog coats. We also picked up an orange fleece blanket and a wonderful piece of wool fabric. We had a piece of faux shearling fabric at home, it was a cheap pet blanket from the $2 shop. We thought they might want a wardrobe of jackets lol!

Now I will tell you mistakes were made and corrected. I am the sewist of this family and Mummy Ask is learning. So when we work together things are imagined differently. Originally I was going to use the cuffs of the shirt to be the belly strap closure but Mum insisted on elastic. I was sure that would be hard to get on but I offered to cover the elastic with some fabric from the sleeve, like a scrunchy. She wouldn’t have it lol! ‘Just chuck some elastic in it, it will be fine’ she said. So at home (and without dogs for fitting) I got started. The coat pattern had been designed to come all the way down their sides, so we knew there wouldn’t need to be too much elastic. The next day at Mums I fitted the dogs by pinning safety pins at the neck and and a safety pin holding elastic to one side. The idea was Mum would chalk mark the elastic, so I knew how much to put in. And this is where we went wrong. The dogs are rescues and weren’t so keen on being fitted. Plus I think Mum hadn’t really thought about how the elastic would work. Of course, when sewn it didn’t work! But we fixed it all in the end! So, when it comes to the belly strap bit, I’ll explain what you should do! So I apologize for any confusion, in advance!

Before we got going, we needed to make a pattern. I used this tutorial to draft the paper pattern, then cut it out in fleece so I could fit it to the dogs (no way those boys would let me get close enough with rustling paper!). Since the fit was fine, I’ll use the orange fleece as a lining for the wool fabric version. We thought it would be cute if they coats matched, so I decided to start with the larger red shirt & the shearling. I decided to use the front of the shirt and it’s button detail for Reg and the back of the shirt with the pockets from the front for Zac.

First I carefully unpicked the pockets and set them aside. Interestingly one of my pockets had a slot for a pen at the top of the pocket flap and it was a pain to unpick!  I gave the shirt a press with steam to remove to stitch lines. Next I buttoned the shirt,  pinned down the button placket. I didn’t want it the placket gaping once it was part of the coat, so I needed to secure it. I simply stitched over the existing stitching on each side of the button placket. I used my zipper foot so that I could get close to the buttons.

I removed the front of the shirt from the rest of the shirt and centered the pattern over the placket, making sure that the snap buttons were far away enough from the edge and not in the seam allowance. Once it was pinned down I simply cut it out. Cat photo bombs all the way!

I decided to incorporate the collar so I marked my seam allowance out on the collar stand and trimmed it down. I didn’t want the collar to go all the way around the neck, so I pinned it on and marked where it should stop. I cut two pieces this length from the collar.

Since I now had a raw edge, I cut a 1 1/2 inch wide piece of fabric from the scraps and pressed it to form something resembling bias tape (if your not sure, read this). I used that to bind the raw edges. I pinned the collar pieces on and then basted them to make everything easier. That’s the outer fabric for Reg done!

For Zac’s coat, I wanted to use the yoke detail on the back of the shirt, so I pressed the shirt in half down the centre back. I pinned on the pattern on the fold and cut it out. I pinned on the pockets I removed earlier and top stitched them on. And that was Zac’s outer done! At this point I also cut out a shearling lining for each dog.

Next up, belly straps! By safety pinning the coats on, I worked out how long the belly strap needed to be and marked out where it needed to go to suit each dog. I used some 1 1/2 inch black elastic for the straps. We designed the coats to cover the dogs sides and almost meet under the belly so our elastic is very minimal. See we screwed up here. I would advise measuring in the same way but then making changes ahead!

Now to put everything together! I pinned the elastic to the right side of the shearling on one side only. I laid the outer fabric on top, right sides facing and pinned. I left a turning gap of about 4″ on the other side, opposite the elastic. This was the mistake! You should have a piece of elastic on each side and leave a turning gap in the straight bit at the bottom. I stitched around the coat from one side of the turning gap to the other. I trimmed down the seam allowances of the shearling because it’s so bulky but left them in tact where the turning gap was. I also clipped the seam allowances at the curve. I turned everything right sides out and hand sewed the gap closed. Well, mum did the hand sewing while I stitched up the other coat! You should have a bit of elastic hanging out of both sides of your coat.

In a continuation of fixing our mistake, I cut the cuffs of the shirt, worked out how much they crossed over when buttoned, added seam allowance and the amount of extra needed and chopped. I turned the raw edge 1/4 inch to the wrong side and stitched it down. I aligned that edge with the elastic, right sides together and stitched a small seam. I folded the cuff piece down, so it was an extension of the elastic and topstitched it down so there were no raw edges. And ta da! Belly straps with a spiffy elasticated, pearl button snap closure! Yay! And yay for screwing up because this is much nicer that the original plan. The comfiness of elastic coupled with a cute closure. And I get to prove to you, once again, that I make mistakes because I’m only human. As the saying goes, ‘To err is human, to forgive is canine’!

So there’s just Velcro and then we are done! I positioned the Velcro and stitched around it in a box. I have some good pointers on Velcro in this post. I made sure the soft side of the Velcro faced the dog, so if it didn’t overlap perfectly, it wouldn’t be scratchy. And then there were dog coats……..
And they ran and jumped and played! And we knew that they were protected by Frontline and by their new, spiffy coats! Then like every good fairy story, the came home to their good and gracious Queen and rested peacefully. The End.