Fast Making #10 - Havanese Illusion Leash
Like many of the artists in Wainwright's “Pet-tecture” book, coming up with designs comes easier to me when I think about how me and my pets interact together. Like the guinea pig house I did earlier, for example, I can see it being something my own pigs would appreciate.
This project is also a design for my own pet, Alice, and the rest of the Havanese breed dogs. Much less practical than other work in “Pet-tecture,” I took inspiration from Jesse Reiser & Nanako Umemoto’s Chihuahua Cloud.
Reiser & Umemoto explain (using excessively academic language) that the Cloud represents the Chihuahua as a breed’s inner psyche on the outside—that they’re a big dog in a small dog’s body. More interesting to me, it also reflects the traditional connection/bond between owner and pet, though I’m not sure how and if it’s meant to be used (for walking or something else).
And I took inspiration from Kazuyo Sejima’s Bichon Frise bed, which I adore. I love the blurring of lines between the object & its user, and making a project in this way seems to be an easy way to inject personality into a piece since pets are full of personality already.
Basically combining these two concepts to fit my own pet’s breed, I started on a glove & leash combination meant to mimic the Havanese coat.
For the glove, I just traced my hand on paper & cut it for use as a pattern, including seam allowance.
Once it was sewn up and turned inside out, I put it on and realized how mascot-y it was. Later I’d realize this whole project looks much more silly than fashionable, but I think it lines up with Havanese’s personalities, or at least my crazy one’s.
The glove manages to fit, but the fingers weren’t sewn quite long enough so there’s a bit of ‘webbing’ in between fingers.
Realizing it’s 5PM and a Sunday and thus no where to buy random supplies cheaply, I started to forage for something to use as a collar hook for the leash.
I finally found a bag I probably won’t use again, and it had a metal latch on it. I used a seam ripper to detach rather than snipping it off it so I could reattach it if I want to later.
Then it’s just a matter of sewing a long strap, turning it inside out, sewing a loop for a handle, and sewing in the hook.
Without Alice around, it’s hard to demonstrate with pictures how it’s meant to look, but I used a dog doll I made to look like her (only slightly uglier than Alice) and tried to show how it works.
Hopefully it’s obvious looking at it—I’m taking the phrases “attached to the hip” & “are you walking the dog or is the dog walking you” more literally, the material hiding where you start & where the dog ends, and it works especially well with long sleeves.
The leash isn’t really suitable for big or untrained dogs, but it would be fine for a Havanese like Alice.
