Ready for the Rain! DIY Dog Raincoat

This post involves three of my favorite things: Crafting, Recycling, and Webby!  

As many of you may already know, Korean summers are just plain awful. While the temperatures aren’t astronomically high at about 20-30 degrees Celsius (70-85 degrees Fahrenheit), it’s the 80% plus humidity that can be unbearable. You know that feeling when you step into a bathroom just after someone has taken a really long, hot shower in it? BLECH. That’s the whole country of Korea in the summer. However, Korea also has a monsoon season where the heavens dump ENORMOUS amounts of rain for about a month during the summer.

Monsoon season has yet to start in Korea, but there have been a few rainy days here and there. My poor dog, Webby, has gotten pretty wet while we’ve been outside on our daily walks. I’ve been meaning to make a raincoat for her forever, and finally I got around to it!

Webby has a love affair with chewing nylon straps—she’s chewed through countless leashes as well as the handles of several of my reusable grocery bags. The following one was one of my favorites since it’s very sturdy and holds so much–I was VERY bummed when I found that she had chewed through one of the handles. (She chewed the front handle, and I tied it together.)

I knew I needed to retire this bag, but the print was so cute, I was determined to recycle it somehow. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention— I knew that upcycling this ruined bag into a stylish raincoat would be the perfect way to spend a creative afternoon! Here’s a step-by-step look:

1. First, I used a seam ripper to disassemble the bag. I then cut out a coat shape, as well as a rectangular piece for a strap at the bottom of the raincoat.
2. I then sewed a 1/4″ seam around the main piece. For the strap, I folded the rectangular piece and hemmed it, and then attached it to the main body.
3. I salvaged the good handle by folding it over the neck edge and sewing it in place.
4. I added Velcro tape so the coat would close around the front as well as around her body.
5. Ta-da! One super cute doggy raincoat! However, I noticed that the back part was kind of “high” because this material is so stiff. I add a small pleat near her tail to help the rain coat  angle down more in the back. You can see the pleat in the following pictures.

  

Webby is ready for monsoon season~~~ Bring it on!