Harnessing the Power of Recycling--Green Project Entry for MAKE Magazine

Click on the MAKE icon to vote for my Recycled Jeans Dog Harness project!

Introducing Tulip

Here is Tulip in her cool new harness:


I adopted a really cute dog from a rescue organization over the summer (does that make her a "reused" or "recycled" pet?). Her name is Tulip. She came with a collar, but she clearly needed a harness for "walkies" or she'd choke herself pulling on the collar.

Tulip's hair was cut very short, so Tulip looks pretty good in a T-shirt or harness. Tulip is practically a rag doll--floppy, mellow, and pliant--and she is very tolerant of being dressed and undressed repeatedly. So another project began...

I still have the leftover jeans parts from my jeans circle quilt, dining room chair covers, and other jeans projects. Since most of these used leg pieces, I have plenty of waistbands and upper sections handy. Time for some serious seam ripping!

I started with the one waistband and the attached upper back section of the jeans. I removed the back pockets to save for some other project. I cut the section to get a rough fit under and around Tulip's chest.

I also used a waistband from another pair of jeans.


Here is the chest part after stitching to fit Tulip. The separate collar section on the right is sewn closed, so the jeans button is now just decorative. The collar part just slips over Tulip's head.


I salvaged the buckle and webbing strap from one of my kids' old lunchboxes. My kids go through at least a couple a year by doing things like leaving spilled milk in them over Spring vacation (mmm, yum!), dragging them over concrete, and other things, so I regularly scavenge useful buckles, hardware, zippers, and straps from them (the picture shows a newer one).


I used part of another waistband to make the strap that goes between the collar and the chest strap, and sewed on a reused belt loop to hold the scavenged D-ring.

Done!

Here is the finished harness. The second button has been replaced on the chest strap so I would have two matching waistband buttons. It is also sewn closed and is now just decorative, since the lunchbox buckle provides the adjustable fastening. If you look carefully, you can see that I completely removed the waistband that goes around the chest and then sewed it and the belt loop back on so the button and buttonhole would be in the right place! Tulip is fortunately much smaller than the original 36-inch waist. The triangular section goes on the dog's chest.


Here is the finished harness looking down at the top (the dog's back).


The buckle strap goes through a loop on the D-ring section.

The Finished Product


Here she shows off the D-ring on the belt loop:


Lacey and Tulip: Out and About


Yes, Lacey needs a matching jeans harness too. Maybe later...


Let's go!

Harnessing the Power of Recycling

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If you came here from the MAKE Magazine Green Project page, please go here:
Harnessing the Power of Recycling--Green Project Entry for MAKE Magazine
(same project, slightly different writeup)--Thanks!

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I adopted a really cute dog from a rescue organization (NARF) two weeks ago. Her name is Tulip. She came with a collar, but she clearly needed a harness for "walkies" or she'd choke herself pulling on the collar.

Tulip's hair was cut very short, and it's a different type from Lacey's hair, so Tulip looks pretty good in a T-shirt or harness (unlike Lacey: "Does this make my butt look big?" "Huge!"). Unlike Lacey, Tulip is very tolerant of being dressed and undressed repeatedly. Tulip is practically a rag doll--floppy, mellow, and pliant. So another project began...

I still have the leftover jeans parts from my jeans circle quilt, dining room chair covers, and other jeans projects. Since most of these used leg pieces, I have plenty of waistbands and upper sections handy. Time for some serious seam ripping!

I started with the one waistband and the attached upper back section of the jeans. I removed the back pockets to save for some other project. I cut the section to get a rough fit under and around Tulip's chest.

I also used a waistband from another pair of jeans.


Here is the chest part after stitching to fit Tulip. The separate collar section on the right is sewn closed, so the jeans button is now just decorative. The collar part just slips over Tulip's head.


I salvaged the buckle and webbing strap from one of my kids' old lunchboxes. My kids go through at least a couple a year by doing things like leaving spilled milk in them over Spring vacation (mmm, yum!), dragging them over concrete, and other things, so I regularly scavenge useful buckles, hardware, zippers, and straps from them (the picture shows a newer one).


I used part of another waistband to make the strap that goes between the collar and the chest strap, and sewed on a reused belt loop to hold the D-ring.

One thing I should mention is that I used a really simple-but-useful little gadget called the "JEAN-A-MA-JIG" by Dritz to sew over the really thick parts where the jeans seams and the belt loops were. This helps to prevent the stitches skipping when the presser foot is going up or down at a steep angle when you go over the big hump in the fabric.



The sewing still wasn't easy, but it was better. It actually turned out that for my machine with the "walking foot" (that contraption that includes the presser foot and sticks out behind the presser foot--it helps keep multiple layers from sliding out of place), I needed a thinner version to put under the foot in the back, while the thicker "JEAN-A-MA-JIG" fit under the front side. I made the thinner version from a plastic soft drink cup that was languishing in my recycling bin.


Done!

Here is the finished harness. The second button has been replaced on the chest strap so I would have two matching Levi's buttons. It is also sewn closed and is now just decorative, since the lunchbox buckle provides the adjustable fastening. If you look carefully, you can see that I completely removed the waistband that goes around the chest and then sewed it and the belt loop back on so the button and buttonhole would be in the right place! Tulip is fortunately much smaller than the original 36-inch waist. The triangular section goes on the dog's chest.


Here is the finished harness looking down at the top (the dog's back).


The buckle strap goes through a loop on the D-ring section.

Introducing Tulip

Here is Tulip in her cool new harness:


Here she shows off the D-ring on the belt loop:


Lacey and Tulip: Out and About


Yes, Lacey needs a matching jeans harness too. Maybe later...


Here's the whole doggy-infatuated gang! That's me in one of my favorite gaudy tie-dyed T-shirts.

That original 36-inch jeans waist might be just the right size for Moxie the giant schnauzer...

Big Wide Brown Sandals

Everyone's feet are different, but some feet are more "different" than others in a world where standardization and mass production are the norm. Very wide flat feet, for example, are hard to fit in standard shoe sizes, so they are good candidates for custom sandals. And since the particular feet in question belong to my husband, they are perfect candidates for my sandal experimentation.

Padding

I had tried, unsuccessfully, to find the padding that Michael of Island Sandals uses. Rob at Tandy suggested I try using a blue foam sleeping bag pad, which made sense to me, so I got one at REI and started hacking it up.

Once I had cut the strap holes and finished the top piece (Tandy Eco-Flo dye, Bison Brown followed by Carnauba Creme finish), I glued the blue foam to the top piece with Fast-bond 30 and wrapped the straps around the foam through the holes, as seen below:

I cut the sole pieces a bit oversized so I would have room for stitching and trimming later.

I'm working with quite thick leather again, like I did for my first pair of sandals: 13-15 oz. saddle skirting for the sole bottoms, with an extra layer for the heels. I used 6-7 oz. leather for the upper layer of the shoe, and 10-11 oz. leather for the straps (no way is he going to wear through these straps!). In hindsight, I should have used thinner leather for the straps, maybe 6-7 or 8-9 oz., because these straps are awfully thick, stiff, and bulky. Besides, the nice thing about the free-floating straps (that is, they are not permanently fastened to the sole anywhere so they can be infinitely adjusted) is that they are relatively easy to replace if they wear out or break.

I glued the top sole to the bottom sole (carefully not gluing where the straps are), then used a drill press with a small bit (around 1/16") to drill the holes around the edge. It worked pretty well, so long as I kept the straps out of the way! It was definitely easier than holding a power drill by hand like I did for my daughter's thong sandals.

Stitching by hand around the edges took a while, but I eventually finished them.

I like the wood-grained appearance of the hand-dyed leather. I got that by using a small paintbrush to apply the dye to the upper sole pieces.

Sole Bottoms

I glued a layer of SoleTech 3.5 onto the front part of the bottom, and glued a section of rubber chevron-patterned soling (also ordered from Louis Birns & Sons) onto the heels, as in the picture below:

When I took the picture above, my husband had already been wearing the sandals for a while (several months), so some wear is visible on the soles. The SoleTech 3.5 is a little too thin and dainty for this purpose. When he eventually wears all the way through it, I'll replace it with more of the chevron soling. Meanwhile, the sleeping-bag pad foam has held up pretty well so far and is still pretty resilient.

Lacey Too?

Lacey wants to know when I'll be making a pair of shoes for her, but she points out that she has much daintier little feet than my husband!

Another Case for an iPod Touch

As expected, my younger daughter got an iPod Touch too, and of course she needed a case before we went on vacation. I made her a case similar to her sister's case, with a few modifications now that the first one has been in service for a bit.

I used some alligator-grain embossed leather from Tandy. It was about the same thickness as the black leather I used for the other case, so this time I glued a layer of the black onto the front piece for extra stiffness. This time I also sewed the loop side of the Velcro onto the pocket before putting the case together.

As before, I stitched around the main screen opening.

For the previous case, the front and back pieces were about the same width. This time I want the seam to be more to the front of the iPod, so I made the front piece narrower and the back piece wider. The seam at the bottom of the picture is where the pocket is sewed to the back piece.

Here is the pocket sewed to the back. The pocket opening is in the center of the picture.

Next I sewed the back to the front.

I did the strap the same way I did it on the previous case, with fleece binding, plastic twine, and a buckle. I opened the binding, sewed one side to the front of the case, then closed the binding over the case edge and sewed the back of the binding on (through all the layers including the front part of the binding).

Like before, I trimmed the flaps to fit once the case was all sewed together.

I made the pocket a bit bigger this time so it would be easier to put the headset in.

It's a little easier to see the flap construction on the patterned brown leather.

Another "quick" project (though it still took me several hours). Done!

A Touching Case for an iPod Touch

The latest project was a pretty quick one: a carrier for an Apple iPod Touch for my daughter. I had a deadline, since she was about to go off on a school trip and wanted to bring it with her. It needed a shoulder strap that would go across the chest so it would be easy to access but hard to lose.

I started by making a pattern/prototype of paper towel and Scotch tape (some of my favorite prototyping supplies).

I got some Wrights extra-wide (half inch wide) double-fold fleece binding for the strap so the strap would be soft against the skin. I reinforced it with the type of cheap plastic twine people use to tie purchases to car racks at IKEA. This piece actually came from my local Tandy store, where it had been used to tie up one of my large pieces of leather so I could get it home in my car! Yeah, I almost never throw anything away...

Here is the twine being stitched into the binding. That's a "walking foot" on the machine, which helps when sewing through multiple layers.

I cut out a few scraps of the soft black leather left over from my Sonotube-and-leatherTV chair. I used my sewing machine and heavy polyester thread to stitch a reinforcing outline for the iPod screen and the menu button as well as for the power cord and headset holes.

The crescent of stitching on the left was just for testing. It will be cut off later. Here is the right side of the leather:

I wanted a pocket for the case to hold the iPod headset when it wasn't being used, so I sewed a pocket piece onto the back and stitched the back to the front:

I cut out the rectangle for the screen and the slot at the bottom for the cord.

I sewed the sides of the case together using the machine, and then I sewed the fleece binding strap onto the sides of the case. Once the pieces were all together, I adjusted the fit and cut off the excess leather from the cover flap and the center tab (top of the front piece).

I had been planning to attach snaps to the tab and cover to hold the case closed, but after I had put the case together, I thought of using hook-and-loop fasteners (Velcro) instead. My daughter liked that idea. Since I had already sewed the pocket on, I stitched a strip of the loop part onto the pocket by hand. I used my sewing machine to sew the hook parts onto the center tab and the end of the cover.

The center tab (right at the top of the iPod) in the picture above fits through a slot in the back of the case and then holds the headset pocket closed. Note that I did not cut out a hole for the menu button at the bottom of the iPod. The stitching there is just to provide a tactile indication of the button location, since the leather is soft and thin enough to allow the button to be pressed right through the leather.


The cover flap folds completely down over the front of the iPod and up around the bottom of the back, covering the hole for the cords and fastening to the Velcro on the pocket back.


I cut up a recycled white plastic pill bottle to get a fairly stiff plastic rectangle, then I put some notches on it to make a "bobbin" for winding the headset around. The bobbin and headset fit nicely into the pocket on the back. Here you can also see the Velcro loop piece sewn onto the pocket:

Here is the finished case. My daughter wears it with the screen facing her body so it's easier to read the iPod without removing the case. I added a plastic buckle (left over from previous experiments with making tie-dyed dog collars!) to the strap so it would be adjustable and easy to take off.

The case seems to be a hit: my daughter has been wearing it around the house ever since I gave it to her, and her younger sister has already put in her request for one of her own!

And just to be complete, here's a completely gratuitous picture of Lacey. She wasn't interested in wearing the iPod case since my daughter wouldn't share the headset...