Winter Dog Coat

My dog loves to cuddle up under his blankets at night and my son loves to walk him during the early morning hours. It can get very cold in the mornings so I decided to make our dog a double layer fleece coat which resembles his favorite blankets.

I hope you all find this helpful and can make your own dog a comfy warm coat to enjoy.

You will need the following supplies to make this fleece coat:

• Dog Pattern/Kraft paper
• Paper scissors
• Pins and pin holder
• Measuring tape (I know, making a dog coat using a cat measuring tape. My dog would not like this if he was watching me)
• Sewing machine thread
• Ruler
• Two different patterned anti-pill fleece (1 yard each)
• Velcro
• Seam ripper
• Reflective tape

Not pictured:

• Vinyl fabric
• Sewing machine
• Fabric scissors
• Binding ribbon
• Glue gun and glue sticks

First we need to prep the pattern. I took a pattern that I previously used to make a dog rain coat. It's longer on the sides as well as the front and back. I traced it onto a piece of Kraft paper so I can make the necessary adjustments without ruining my original pattern. First I took the following measurements:

• Neck to tail
• Body circumference (whichever part is thickest on your dog)
• neck circumference

I wasn't sure how long to make the coat, but I knew I didn't want to make it as long as the rain coat. I halved the body circumference, which is 15 inches and then decided to subtract 4 inches from that. This gave me 11 inches. This seemed like a good length and then I added 1/2 an inch for seam allowance. My original pattern had a length of 13.75 inches so I needed to remove 2.25 inches from my pattern. I did this all along the bottom and then redrew my curve in the back. This also shortened the neck area which was pretty wide in order to protect the dog's neck from rain and wind. I left the back long so that it could cover more of his hind area, but you can shorten to just above the tail.

We have one more step and then we are ready to cut. We need to add a belly band that will velcro under the belly. We want to make sure it is not too tight and that the whole coat fits the body circumference. I made it 7 inches in length and decided to make it wide (7.25 inches) to keep more of his underside covered and warm. I then taped the belly band to the main pattern so I only need to cut two pieces out instead of four.

Now we cut on the new line and you have your pattern.

We now take the pattern that was customized for Jackie and place it on the fleece fabric. I folded the fabric with the selvedges (opposite side to where the fabric is cut) meeting each other. Now the pattern is placed on the fabric. You place the edge that says "center fold" on the fold of the fabric. Pin around the pattern and make sure it's nice and flat. Once you cut around the pattern you remove it and place it on the next piece of fabric the same way you did the first. Once you have both pieces cut out, you place them right sides together and pin all the way around. Then you take this fabric sandwich to the sewing machine and sew a half inch seam allowance all around except for 2 inches at the tail end of the fabric. Here is where you will turn the coat right side out. Before doing that, you must clip the curves, cut into the corners and cut the corners off of the belly band. Make sure not to cut into the stitching. This clipping and cutting will allow the fabric to sit flat once you turn it inside out. I also trimmed some of the seam allowance to 1/4 inch so there isn't so much bulk.

Once we clip the curves, cut into the corners and flip the coat inside out, we push all the corners out with our finger or a pencil eraser. Once that is done, pin the open section closed and sew as close to the edge as possible. This is called topstitching. It gives a nice edge to the coat and keeps the two layers from shifting.

Take the velcro and sew it to the belly band edge and the neck flap edge. Make sure that you sew the hook on the top side (black fabric side) of one belly band (and neck flap) and then the loop on the other belly band, (and neck flap) but on the underside (maroon fabric side). I made the mistake of sewing it on the same sides of opposite belly bands and couldn't close it when I first put it on Jackie. I did use my seam ripper to rip out the seam and resew it the correct way, but did not take a picture of it. I also added four pieces of velcro to the sides so I could add a small piece of reflective ribbon/tape. Since the coat is black, I want cars to be able to see my son and dog, but when he isn't walking the dog at night he can easily remove the strips of reflective ribbon/tape and the small velcro pieces will not be obvious on the coat.

Sew the hook and loop close to the edge. You may want to change your needle to a denim needle since it will be pretty thick trying to sew through all those layers. This is optional, but be careful since needles do break!

I decided to make Jackie some dog booties, but he only let me place one bootie on his foot. He was being quite a Diva model that day. I'll quickly go over this in case you want to make some for your favorite pooch!

I traced Jackie's foot and then took the largest diameter of that oval. In order to get the circumference I used the equation C=PI x D or in my case it was C=3.14 x 3.40 which equals 10.67, but i rounded to 10.75.

I drew a rectangle the length of the circumference and the width of the height I wanted to boots to be. I used 5 inches. I then cut the pattern out and placed it on fleece. I then used the longest diameter of the oval to make a circle out of the pattern paper. This pattern was placed on another piece of fleece and on vinyl fabric. Next, I sewed the circle to the rectangle, right sides together. I didn't use pins and just sewed it all the way around except for a small section...very small section. I found some seam binding and pinned it on the inside edge of my rectangle before I closed up my tube. I lined up the rectangle fabric, right sides together and sewed up the side seams. Once you turn inside out you will have the seam binding coming out of the seam and a nice tube with a circle sewn at the bottom. The seam binding is used to tie the bootie around the dog's ankle. Sew up the other three booties the same way.

Lastly, I took the vinyl circles and using a glue gun, I glued the vinyl to the bottom of the fleece circle. I did this to the other three and that's how you make two pairs of warm dog booties.

Here is Jacking modeling his coat and one bootie. It took forever to take these pictures because there were a lot of dogs walking near our house that day and he didn't want to stay still. I did make another coat, but this one has a collar and sleeves. I am including the picture of this coat as well.

Now it's time to make a warm fleece coat for your favorite pooch!