For the month of Halloween, our writer, James Vaughan, came up with this great idea of showing you how to make your very own dog bandana for Halloween! No reason to exclude our furry friends out of the Halloween fun!

No Rejection for the Furry Monsters!

Greetings, Biters. For this occasion, I thought I’d do something unique and teach you how to make one of my favorite projects a pet bandana.

After all, every witch has her cat, every demon needs a faithful hell hound, and what’s a Vampire without bats.

We, here, at the Bite, love our furry companions just as much as we love our goth culture, so why not share it with your four-legged friend too.

I picked up sewing from my aunt about five years ago, showing me a simple straight stitch on her sewing machine, which is all you need to know for this project.

Brace For Impact!

The prep work

You’re going to want to make yourself a stencil or pattern from some cardboard or heavy paper. My personal pattern is 8.5 inches by 4.75 inches. Which I find fits most dogs.

Pick out two fabrics

A patterned print and one solid usually works best. I, myself, am using a nice Halloween print and a solid orange for the demo. I also recommend pre-washing and ironing your fabrics in case of shrinkage.

Step By Step

STEP 1

Trace and cut out your pattern from each of your fabrics pining them wrong sides together. Think inside out T-shirt.

Sew along each of the sides, leaving a small gap in the 6th to flip the bandana right side out. It should look something like the picture below.

STEP 2

Next you’re going to want to snip off a small part of all six of your corners before turning it right side out and giving it another pass under the hot iron.

STEP 3

Following the step above, we are going to topstitch in a border, which for us is one long continuous straight stitch.

So what you are going to do for this as you come to the turns, stop mid stitch, raise the pressure foot, but keep the needle down and spin the bandana on the needle.

I, personally, like starting in the middle of the right side myself to seal the hole. I find it less noticeable there once the bandana is ready. Once again, it should look somewhat like the picture below.

STEP 4

Ok, Biters, home stretch! Put your bandana pattern side down and fold it in half, touching the upper tip to the bottom point in your topstitch.

All that’s left now is one last straight stitch from the left corners to the right corners.

There you go get your dog’s collar to fit it through like a belt. Now you and your furry friend can both show off your gothic style.

What Did You Think?

If you enjoyed this DYI article for a furry friend bandana, let us know so James might prepare some other awesome articles for you to try at home! Don’t be shy, show us pictures of your own bandanas too!

James