written 3/10/2024, updated 3/10/2024
What: A Lunar New Year/Tet, lion dancing or lan costume for bigger dogs
Why: The internet is full of these adorable costumes for small dogs, but none whatsoever for bigger dogs
Supplies: Pattern Fabric, Fabric (~2yds of each color for a 70lb dog), Fur Trim, Pompons, Gimp Trim, Pins, Fiber Fill, Sewing Machine, Scissors, Measuring Tape, Sharpie, Fabric Pencils, Thread
Cost: $129.25 in supplies, all others already owned
| Item | Price |
| Pellon Easy Pattern Tracing Material ($1.82 x 4yds) | $7.28 |
| Metallic Gold on Rust Quilt Cotton Fabric ($3.99 x 3yds) | $11.97 |
| 3′ White Marabou Fur Tape Trim by POP! ($15.19 x 4qty) | $60.76 |
| POP! Poms 5in Multicolor 15ct ($1.99 x 1qty) | $1.99 |
| Symphony Broadcloth Polyester Blend Yellow Solid ($2.99 x 2yds) | $5.98 |
| Wrights Products Metallic Scroll Gimp 5/16″, Gold (1 qty) | $11.50 |
| 1.96″ White Faux Fur Lace Ribbon Trim 4 yds ($9.90 x 2 qty) | $19.80 |
| Singer Ball Head Steel Straight Pins size 17, 360ct (1 qty) | $4.27 |
| Dritz Red Tomato Pin Cushion (1qty) | $2.23 |
| Hello Hobby Water Soluble Fabric Pencils Gray and Yellow (1qty) | $3.47 |
| Total | $129.25 |
Complexity: Moderate
Time: 2 weekends
Quick Jump
Reference Images
Process
Planning
- Legs – I knew right off the bat that I would not be adding legs to the costume. It would be just a body drape and a strap under the belly to secure it. My dog is not a huge fan of costumes to begin with, and legs would just be too much especially if/when she decides to sit or lay down.
- Velcro – would be the best option for any place that needed securing
- Head – I also knew early on that I wanted the head and the body to be 2 separate entities. It could be that a Velcro, tie, or button type of system could be implemented to allow for attachment, but given how much my dog hates hats, the option to just remove it was paramount for her. It could have been sewn on as a hood, but I just prefer the idea of it removable. Bonus, as it leaves room for a collar
- Chest – There’s the option here to either have it Velcro or to just sew it closed. I decided to sew it closed
- Ears – If you’ve put a costume on any dog, you’ll know that they hate having their ears covered. Totally understandable. I wanted to incorporate that into the costume and decided to use the costume’s eyes as ear holes
- Mouth – Both for the costume and the dog. The costume would have been more complete and more obvious had I added an attachment area for the lower jaw of the lion! However, I opted not to for my dog’s comfort and the likely chance she’d chew on it. Much more comfortable that way
- There are several things to consider when sewing: when do you want the thread to show? Can you hide it? If not, then you always have to decide which side is to be sewn on to give the best look on the outward side
Choosing supplies
What color scheme do you want? Lions for Lunar New Year come in a variety of colors!
- I opted for a traditional red (with gold flakes!) and later on added they yellow for contrast given the color of my dog
- Measure your pup with a measuring tape (treats or toys are helpful) to figure out how many yards of fabric you will need of each color. If you have a wiggle monster like me, then just go really fast! You can always cut more of it off and fine tune it later.
- My 70lb dog has an odd body shape and I bought about 2 yards of each fabric color just in case
Question to ask yourself: how do you want to finish it? Bias tape the edges? Make it double layered with an outside and underside? Just sew the edges? That will factor into what you need to buy
- You’ll need your thread color to match the fabric unless you want contrasting stitching
Trim – if using, how do you want it to look?
- I used this longer fur trim for the body and it wasn’t until I got it that I found it wasn’t fur at all… They were feathers. FEATHERS. The look is good, but feathers are fastened to the ribbon tape by adhesive which is a massive nightmare to work with.
- If I had to do it again, I’d make sure to choose faux FUR. On the other side of it, the faux fur I was able to find for the head, was rather difficult to sew in because the sewn ribbon edge was very thin and I’d have to fight the fur to sew it. At least there was no adhesive, though.
- The Chinese gold gimp I used would have been cheaper from the fabric store, except they were out of stock. If I were to do it again, I’d choose a wider width than that 5/16″ I got
Washing
Following the instructions for your fabric, wash it first! The fabric will often end up shrinking a little if you’re using cotton. This way if you wash your costume later after making it (granted you don’t use that feather trim), there’s less a chance of it shrinking then
Pattern Making
I’ve made costumes for dogs in the past, but this time I was armed with pattern fabric. Totally worth the expense! I used to use newspaper, paper, even pee pads to try and have it drape better over the dog. Pattern fabric, ftw!
Testing the cutout… Used pins in the front. Be careful not to stick your dog!
Because I only want to do this project one time, I made it more complicated for myself by cutting and sewing things 2x in the beginning. I utilized a test set from junk fabric, before cutting the real thing from the expensive fabric. That allowed me to fine tune the patterns in a way that I wouldn’t be wasting final product materials. It does take more time, but I found it to be worthwhile in the beginning until I got back into the groove (hadn’t sewn anything in 6 years!)
Test pieces for the Hood, the Horn, and the Eye
GO TIME
Hood
In sewing, you sew inside out to hide the thread. Trace, cut, test on dog, pin seam, and then turn inside out to test again until happy
Using a Fiskar detail knife on a self-healing mat to cut out the ear holes, stopping at the marked lines
Body
At some point, you just have to go for it and hope for the best. In the beginning, I was only planning on doing a plain red with white fur trim costume, but then ended up deciding on adding the yellow contrast. Lion Dance costumes usually see a wavy fur trim, and I puzzled for a half a day on how to do it. After consulting two people with much more experience, it turns out that the technique of basting would be what I’d have to do to achieve that look. That also meant MORE fabric and trim than I’d anticipated because the waves will add more surface area.
Result of spending the time to elongate the yellow accent pieces and cutting so the waves would fit well on the body piece
Then, after mulling it over during the work week, I decided NOT to include the wavy look. Why? One, and mainly, because of the extra material: The horrible feather trim I’d bought were already so very expensive, and I really didn’t want to buy anymore and already was not looking forward to sewing it in. Two, basting is not something I’m familiar with at all, and given the last-minute start to this project, there was a high likelihood I’d not be able to complete it on time for the Lunar New Year.
Turns out, it was a good thing I didn’t incorporate the waves because though I knew I’d have trouble, I never anticipated the extent of the trouble I’d have with that feather trim.
Dry fitting the pieces. The right image shows the feather trim
At this point, I ended up ordering a true faux fur trim with a sewing strip attached to it. There was an option for fur trim ribbon (think edge trimming for Santa Claus costumes), but that’s not what I wanted
TAIL
Doing the tail got me my first real taste of using the feather trim. It wasn’t too bad at first: I started it inside out which was a little tricky given the sandwiching of the feather trim. Then flipped it out, sewed in the edges, and then added the gimp (badly) on top. It’s basically a nice trial run involving the main materials for the body, allowing the user to get used to working the material, and not mattering as much how it looks. No one really looks at the tail.
If I had to do it again, I think I’d make the tail smaller.
Back Stripe and Faux Fur Trim
Now to sew on the design for the back of the beast and attach the tail afterwards!
The doggone fur was hard to force aside to sew properly. I had to spritz it with water and use a comb to try and keep the fuzz out of the way of the needle. Still managed to clog the bobbin anyways. Notice in the rightmost image that I had the pin on the wrong side, making it harder to pull out while sewing. Doable, just harder
Faux fur trim sewn! Stitch lines on top because I couldn’t figure out how to do this one inside out, and then adding the gimp trim for decoration but also to try and hide the stitches. This is why I would have opted for a wider gimp than the 5/16″!
Body Accent Trim
The yellow accent trim is held onto the body by a line of sewn thread. It is able to flap around and therefore moves with the dog’s movements. Sewn into the unattached side of the accent strips are the feather trim and the gold gimp
There’s a lot of measuring and marking (fabric pencils and sewing gauge rulers!) to be done to ensure an even placement of trim on the strip. Attaching the gold gimp on top of the feather trim was even MORE frustrating than just sewing the feathers in because you have to go through the increased thickness of both materials while powering through the adhesive two times in a row.
Goo Gone is your friend. I applied it at regular intervals to the gunky needle (also make sure your sewing machine settings and needle are set up for heavier material. Managed to break the universal needle and had to swap for a thick one), and needed to undo the bobbin thingy and Goo Gone that, too.
Once done with the trim on the yellow accent, then it’s time to attach it to the body fabric! No pressure now! Measure twice, cut once! Measure and pin the yellow accent, then sew that bad boy!
Left: Laying it dry; Center: Pinning. Note the upside down accent; Right: SEW AWAY. At least it’s just fabric this time
This is a closeup of the zigzag stitch I used throughout the costume to close up the all stitching ends. I realized after a few fittings that my dog is a dog and will shake and run and jump, so not only would the zigzag stitch be strong, but it ended up being the only way to seal the gold gimp to prevent it from fraying and coming apart at the ends
After much frustration and headaches, here is the finished body!
Belly Strap
Measure out the length needed for your belly strap and where you want to place it on your dog. Choose the Velcro you want, too. Adhesive Velcro is not advised. You sew directly on top of the Velcro itself to secure it
WARNING: Make sure you understand how to position the Velcro before sewing it in! I messed up and had to undo one side because I accidentally positioned one on the inside. The pictures shown are the correct way to orient them on the straps.
Sew the double-layered straps (two-sided to look pretty and give some strength), and then secure the Velcro! I used a square pattern with zigzags on the ends for the loop side, and then an X-pattern on the hook side
Horn
This is pretty straightforward. Just cut out the shape, double up in the fabric, sew the edges, leaving the bottom open for poly/fiber fill, and turn it inside out! A chopstick is a wonderful tool for both stuffing and forcing the tip of the horn out
Eye
This part requires a little bit of drawing. Cut out the circle for the eyes on both black and white pieces. Then on the black pieces, draw (white or yellow fabric pencil) and then cut out the eye design. The black will go on the white.
LEFT: I cut all 4 pieces at one time; MIDDLE: Folded the black in half to make cutting easier; RIGHT: Cut design on white
Here, you can adhere it how you’d like. I ended up just sewing on the outer ring to the hood fabric together with the faux fur trim and forgetting completely about the rest of the eye. Plus, I didn’t have any proper fabric adhesive, planning to go back later and do it, but I never did.
This is a closeup at the faux fur trim I used. It has a ribbon in the middle to sew onto things. It was nice, but a little tricky to do. Here I sandwiched the trim ribbon between the eye fabric and the hood fabric with black thread
Finishing Up the Hood
After the eye, the only things left are the horn, the rest of the faux fur trim, head securement, then the pompons for the nose
An unamused model (I think it was like 11pm), Messy machine and hand stitching of the filled horn to the hood
Attach the trim to the rest of the head, test on the dog, and then secure the hood ties (Velcro here)
After that, hand sew colored pompons for the nose and other face accents (I added a line of gold gimp to the center of the back up to the horn), then BOOM! You’re DONEDONEONE!
Fine Tuning
Now, what I ran out of time to do and meant to go back to do was fine tune the costume. Adhere the eye down, clean up the edges. Figure out how to attach the hood to the body. I would use bias tape made from the same fabric to seal the edges. I’d use ties to connect the head and body together. I’d consider a jaw for the head. Hand-sew a few inconsistent lines to straighten them out. However, I didn’t do anything! No one really noticed or cared except for me, so I guess it was okay.
Result
The costume was a hit at the Lunar New Year event. My dog didn’t mind wearing it, and both my niece and my nephew fought over their chance to don it. No rips! Success all the way around! I don’t regret not adding waves to the fur at all given the feather material (which kept losing feathers), and definitely would not recommend using it for a costume like this. If I was using a true faux fur trim, I would try to make it wavy.
My absolute favorite part of this costume and the part I’m most proud of is the ear holes! It’s so cute and the biggest reason my dog wasn’t too bothered by the hood!
Happy sewing!