Bespoke Tailoring For Your Dog
Angus here is a very bespoke dog. Mr fancy pants says he's sick of sitting out in the rain, getting all wet, fur matted in a wet wad down his back. Perfume a la wet dog is not one of his favourite scents. I think a raincoat is needed. Preferably one that fits as snug as a bug in a rug, tailored to Angus' unique frame.
Today I am going to document how well my collaboration with this pampered pooch went.
If you want to follow along you will need a large sheet of paper eg. Wrapping paper, pattern paper, news paper...
A measuring tape, ruler, and a pencil.
Let's Take Some Measurements.
We need to take four measurements A, B, C, D.
A - measure along the back from collar to tail + add 2cm. Angus = 17cm + 2 = 19cm
B - measure around the neck. Angus = 27.5cm
C - Width at chest, how long will the coat hang? Angus = 7cm
D - around the middle of the body. Angus = 36cm
Draw It Out
For Angus I drew a 19cm line along the fold.
I halved Angus' neck measurement taking it from 27.5cm to 13.5cm (who needs exact measurements, working with the nearest cm is easier than the nearest mm)
Drawing the neck shape is hard, it takes a bit of trial and error drafting. I don't have any tips to make this but easier. Go for a big wide U shape.
For Angus I measured 7cm down from the curved neck.
To get to a good shape draft out a box/squared corner at A and C then round the corner off. A dinner plate can be used to trace the curved edge.
Commercial Vs Homemade
Above you will see two pattern outlines, one green, the othe purple. The green is what your average at home drafted pattern will look like. This is a perfectly serviceable shape. You can cut it use it, it'll work just fine.
However commercial patterns tend to have a little more sculpting a curving going on, see purple line. Once you've drafted out the green pattern you can give it a bit of a tweak, pulling the neck width to a slant and adding a curve where the body of the coat will sit above the shoulder.
At this point you can with a play around with tweaking the shape of your coat or you can leave as is.
Angus is an all or nothing dog, nothing is too extravagant for him, so I gave his coat a tiny reshape.
Body Straps
So for Angus I took his body measurement of 36cm and halved to 18cm.
The width on Angus' neck strap is 7cm and so is the width on his body strap.
Cut body straps separate to body
Adding A Hood
I measured from the mark to the fold at back of neck.
Take this measurement and draw a rectangle (measurement at shortest end) rough height of head at longest.
Draw a hood shape. Curving all pieces. Heavily curved back, slight curve to front, and just a very slight rounded off corners to bottom.