Dog Dress

Pattern:  self-drafted
Fabric: remnant ponte
Cost: free (scraps)


Do I have more serious/useful/important things to sew? Yes. But sometimes you're tired, your house is under construction, and you just need something light. Something fun. Something that results in your dog wearing a dress. Yeah...



This dress is mostly just a series of almost-rectangles sewn, gathered, and buttoned together. The body is a trapezoid sewn into a tube to accommodate her proportions, and the skirt is the same shape but I had accidentally made it too small to be the body, so it became the gathered skirt. I told you I was tired!

The most tricky thing about making a dog dress was actually how to handle the under side of the skirt, or the part which runs along her belly. Since dogs stand horizontally, I knew a skirt would hang funny there (and could possibly get peed on), so you'll notice that this skirt is more of a butt ruffle as I eliminated the belly portion entirely. This seems to be a fairly common treatment for a dog dress (some inspiration here). 

I cut the straps to measure, which was a bit of a challenge on a very sleepy puppy (she usually puts herself to bed around 8, and evenings are prime sewing time for me). As a result, the length was fine but the functionality was lacking - you can see in the picture above that they tend to slip off her shoulders. To remedy this, I later attached a cross strap between the two straps at her chest, much like the H-strap on lederhosen. This seems to have resolved the issue.


If you came here for a dose of cuteness, I hope you got your fill. For serious sewing, I hope to be back soon!

P.S. Looks like she got her little self featured on Kollabora's Weekly 6

5 comments:

  1. It's pretty cute! And she doesn't seem to mind wearing it too much. Good luck on the construction...

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  2. Ha! your dog looks adorable. I like the pink topstitching too, very fashionable :)

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  3. Oh my goodness, she looks adorable!! You did a great job drafting and sewing this up - those little frenchies (and pugs) can be hard to fit because of their stout stature and their chubby necks.

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  4. So cute! The cross strap really makes it awesome.

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