Friday, December 19, 2014

Hacking a Hoodie: Puppy Dog Tails


Rescue dog hoodie

This is a very simple sewing hack tailored for children who are so fond of animals in general and their pets in particular that they would like to be one. The first step: score a couple of thrift store hoodies. These were about two dollars each.

Rescue dog hoodie complete with tail

Step two: collect some fabric scraps from your stash to use for ears and tail. For each of the hoodies I just made a quick pattern for the ears on a paper towel, cut two pieces per ear for bulk, stitched them together wrong-side-out, turned them to the right side, tucked under the base with a few stitches, and attached them to the hoodie. This first hoodie employed some leftover stretch velvet (not recommended; a bitch to sew).

Iron-on vintage graphic covering hoodie logo

Because this hoodie had a logo and I hate corporate logos, I searched for a few vintage, copyright-free images of dogs on the Internet, printed them onto iron-on transfer paper, and ironed them onto scraps of cotton fabric. I then used the printed fabric as a patch to stitch down over the logo. Because these hoodies were for sisters, I created a second patch for the younger sister's hoodie as well, just so everything would be absolutely fair.

Close-up of iron-on patch

The tail simply involved rolling a long rectangle of fabric until it seemed about right for a tail, hemming under the raw edge, and stitching the end of the tail and rounding it a bit while tucking in the raw edge. The tail was then stitched to the inside back of the hoodie along the hoodie's rib stitching.

Attaching the tail

Photos of the rescue dog hoodie in action are shown below.




The second hoodie used the same procedures described above. This time around, a plush white faux fur leftover from another project was used. The rough conceptual model was a terrier.

Terrier hoodie hack

Back, with iron-on terrier patch

Close-up of patch

The terrier in action

Terrier at play

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