About three weeks ago, I made this dog collar for Mindy and blogged about it here.  Woody and Ellie are in dire need of new ones as well, but it hasn’t been until now that I’ve been able to make them.  I finished them yesterday, attached their tags and they look marvelous.

I chose a blue print for Woody because while he’s a black and white dog, he has one blue eye.  Ellie has been wearing a purple collar for the past nine years, so I chose purple for her.  It really is striking against her tan coat.

I used this tutorial, followed the excellent instructions, but needed to make some adjustments along the way.  The biggest change I made was in the materials I ordered.  Amazon carries a deluxe dog collar kit that contains enough hardware for 10 collars.  The kit comes with a heavy duty nylon webbing that makes my sewing machine want to cry.  When you take the width of the webbing, add interfacing and material folded over twice, you have a really thick piece of material and most standard sewing machines can’t handle the thickness.  I broke two needles in the process.  Amazingly enough I managed to finish Mindy’s collar, but knew I needed to investigate the webbing if I was going to make two more.

I found a Polypro webbing made by the same manufacturer that is just as strong, but without the extra width.  I used this to make Woody and Ellie’s collars and it worked out beautifully.  No broken needles and just as durable.

These worked so well, I decided to make few for my Etsy shop.  If you’re shopping for dog collars or you know someone who is, head over to my shop for some one of a kind collars.

Item #15.  Make Christmas stockings for the dogs.

I know I’ve just set off a tidal wave of eye rolling with this Quest46 item.  All I can say is they’re my kids and they don’t have Christmas stockings.  My real dilemma is whether to go traditional with an actual stocking or a dog-related shape like a bone or a paw.  Thoughts?

We want you to know that we would never roll our eyes at you.  We actually don’t know what that is, but we’re pretty sure we’d never do it.  We love the idea of stockings especially the stuff that comes in them.