Dog Vest

Happy March everyone!  I wish it was the start of spring but unfortunately I'm watching spitting snow outside my window.  I have a 3 mile run planned for today but I might skip and spin inside instead.  I can be either wet or cold on a run but not both!  This morning DT was up and out early so I got a head start on today's project.

Deimos is my dachshund and is always cold!  His new favorite item of clothing is a vest from cloak & dawggie.  It is super cute and he can wear it all day without wiggling out of it like other sweaters so I decided to make him another one. 
The Goods:

• 1/2 yard of cotton Home Dec fabric (40% off at Joann this week!), 
• 1/2 a yard of fleece and 1 yd of interfacing.  I used Craft Fuse because I had some lying around but I think a lighter weight would work just as well.  
• One package of maxi piping or bias tape
• 8 inches of grosgrain ribbon
• 7" of 2" wide velcro
• D ring

 Since you can make two jackets out of the 1/2 yd of fabric I decorated one jacket with bias tape and one jacket I used reflective piping.  I traced around the existing jacket and used it as a pattern.  If you want one, just let me know and I will try to make a pdf file for you.
The Steps:

1. Cut out your face fabric, interfacing and fleece.
2. Fuse the interfacing to the fleece.
3. Sew the maxi piping to the fleece using a zipper foot (or piping foot if you have it!)
4. Sew the ribbon to face fabric, inserting the D ring
5. Sew face fabric and fleece, right sides together using the zipper foot.  Make sure to leave a hole to turn the vest!
6. Turn vest right side out and press.  Top stitch around the vest, closing the hole.
7. Cut 2 3.5 inch strips of velcro, rounding the edges.
8. Stitch velcro onto the vest, soft velcro side on the fleece.

For the bias tape follow steps 1-4 then stitch on the bias tape, sandwiching the two fabrics.  Then follow steps 7 & 8.

Step 9:  Show vest to doggie.  Have doggie do excited "New Clothes!" dance.  Convince doggie to model new vest for blog photos.  This process took the longest!

With flash- love that reflective piping!

Without flash