Modelling Beaded Collar Prototype & Redesign
A dog named Lulu came to visit, and though she was cute, she was very interested in the smells of the ground, and thus not a very good model, but good enough to test the functionality of the bead collar.
My first thought seeing it on her was, this looks very silly. In my defense, it is a hound collar, and I made it with the intention of being on a short-haired dog. On the other hand, I want to be able to sell to multiple breeds of dogs (within the same category; this rabbit one is meant to represent chasing dogs), but a rabbit design also makes sense for a breed like Lulu, a Yorkshire terrier, who were bred to chase things out of holes. But as a whole, I do think it is something I would unironically have my own dog wear, so it’s a success visually I think.
However… there was a very major, very obvious design flaw, in that it’s a small collar (so you won’t usually see the front of their neck) and the D-ring is on the opposite side of the design, so when you’re walking on the lead, you can’t see the very pretty beads. So I have a problem; do I move the D ring or scrap having a collar and just use a harness instead? Probably harness, as my current project is coming out quite large and would suit a harness better, though I feel it’s going to be more difficult to make it look nice.
When thinking whether the applique should be shown in the front or back (I ultimately decided back) I had the idea of using snap buttons (like on letterman jackets) to be able to change out appliques for a single harness rather than sewing each one onto different harnesses. It’s like a croc for your dog, but more expensive, and you can only have one design at a time…
Oh, by the way, I finally finished the pheasant after about a week…
At least, the beading’s finished, but I wasn’t sure how I wanted to integrate it into the harness, so I left it until I figured out the snap-plique idea, so now I just have to add a leather backing. I couldn’t record the process of how it got to this point—too much going on—but I was kind of experimenting as I went, removing beads if it didn’t work out, and I think the end result is messy but still pretty.
