For last year’s GenCon, Rose the Ranger wanted to attend dressed in a Pokemon Eevee dress.
To make her costume, Bitzy altered a standard pattern for a Mrs. Claus dress. For the costume to be easily recognizable as the character of Eevee, it was critical to get the collar correct. The points on the collar had to be sharp and well-defined. Otherwise Rose would look like a tan rabbit. No one wants THAT!
In experimenting with different construction techniques, I found a technique that really worked well. The trick to making fur collars with stiff points is to not sew them the traditional way. You can’t sew the collar with good sides together and then turn it inside out. Just doesn’t work!
Rather than sewing two pieces of fabric together and turning it inside out, you need to make the collar as a separate piece that is worn like a necklace. This has the added advantage of making it easy to take off the ears and collar and suddenly blend into the crowd if your costume gathers too much attention.
Materials
- Pattern
- Fur main fabric, collar fabric, and accent fabric
- Cardboard
- Sewing notions such as thread, needles, velcro, zippers, etc.
Directions
2. Fold it over and sew it for the neckline as you will be covering it with the separate collar.
4. Make sure to fold the paper as needed to get it to conform to the shape of the neckline. This is your pattern for the collar. It should be longer in the back to allow it to be overlapped to be held closed with velcro.
6. Lay the poster board over your fabric and roughly cut out the fabric, leaving 6 inches extra or so all the way around.
7. Put some polyester batting or fiberfill over the poster board and cover that with your fur collar piece. The underside of the fur should be over the batting.
10. Lay down wrong side of collar over wrong side of an additional piece of fur. Rough cut out this fabric to glue to the underside of collar.
11. Put fabric over the white posterboard and hot glue it on the back, covering up the rough edges of the first piece of fur. Trim it as you go.
Your end result is a cute and comfortable, removable collar! The best thing about this technique is you could use it to make a fur collar to put over a ready-made sweatshirt or other top if you don’t want to sew a coordinating dress.
If you have any questions, ask them in the comment field below.
