Watson's Raincoat

Watson and I have a problem: he hates going outside in the rain. I don't blame him, I hate walking him in the rain.
So what was the logic solution?
Sew him a raincoat. Hahaha. But seriously. Hobby Lobby had a sale on patterns for 99 cents! That's a great deal. I couldn't turn it down. And when I found a dog raincoat pattern, I found the answer to my problem.

The blue one in the middle on the left side. It's perfect.

When my mom came to visit a week ago, we went shopping for the perfect raincoat fabric. We found this greattt store in town that's like fabric heaven, Gail K Fabrics.

Rows and rows and rows of fabric. I felt like a Project Runway contestant. They actually had a raincoat sections and of course, we found the most perfect fabric. 

I have no idea why this picture is sideways... but you get the point. It's plaid! Olive and cream and gorgeous. And clearly Watson loves it.

He also loved being measured.

Shocking that I ended up with too much fabric.. just like Mom said I would. Oh well. You can never have too much plaid raincoat fabric. :)

According to the pattern's directions, Watson is a size small so that's the size I cut it out to. But looking back, I should've done a little more measuring and altered the pattern a bit smaller in some places. But more on that later.

Watson is highly amused by fittings.

The entire coat is edged with bias tape, which I had never used before, so this was definitely a learning process for me. These are the straps that run under the belly.

Mom and I didn't buy cream thread because we were certain I already had some in my sewing box. I didn't. However, we had temporarily forgotten about Aunt Mae's supplies. Aunt Mae's stash to the rescue. I found several shades of cream to choose from...

...and successfully completed my first attempt with bias tape!

But in the process got my first injury. :(

I attached the straps to the main body of the coat.

Then sewed the two halves of the hood together (yes, there's even a hood) and trimmed it with bias tape.

I pinned the hood to the main coat. This confused me for a little because the hood wasn't matching where it was supposed to go on the coat, but as it turned out, it gets ruffled, essentially.

You can kinda see the ruffling in this picture. And the whole coat gets trimmed in bias tape.

Since this was my first project with bias tape, the curves were a struggle for me. Luckily, after I sewed them, after this picture, they actually looked pretty decent. I was pleasantly surprised.

The side straps are unfolded and ironed out and sewn to the body along the outside edge of the tape.

 Velcro gets attached so the coat stays on. This was also my first time sewing velcro.

So I was pretty shocked and a little confused when I broke my needle. Apparently you shouldn't sew velcro with a regular needle. I found a more heavy duty needle and pressed onward.

Velcro! Not too shabby of a rectangle, either.
That means the coat is done and ready for a trial run! Luckily it was raining at precisely the right moment.

This poor dog. Hahahaha.

He was not super impressed with the hood feature.

Verdict: Dog still hates the rain. And he can't climb stairs in it. And I think it's a little too big and if he tried to pee, he'd probably pee on the belly strap...

But how precious is this?! Now, as a comfortable article of clothing for the little man, this may not be so successful, but he really did do that shake-the-water-off thing a LOT less, so as a raincoat, it's pretty effective.
I give it two thumbs up just for making my dog look adorable.