The Loki Jacket

Once upon a time, Krispy's Sister had a vision of unparalleled awesomeness: a resplendently geeky dog jacket for the resident Loki to wear.  Together she and I plotted and planned and schemed and nefarioused, and bought fabric and thread, designed and detailed and modified, and generally engaged in cursing and regrets and hindsight.  With the help of our multi-talented baker/paper-flower-maker/fantabulous friend, we learned how to use a sewing machine.  Without her help, the Sister and I struggled with basic things like finding the correct type of bobbin and threading the machine properly.

In the beginning though, there was just this: a green canvas-y top part upon which we hand-appliqued this stylized and modified Loki helmet.  It took a long time.  A really long time.  Needles drank deep of the Sister's blood and I myself went not unscathed, but it was worth it.  You can't see it here, but it's sewn on with shiny gold thread so it looks spectacular in the sun.

Lessons learned include: number pattern pieces, keep pattern pieces
organized, tacking down with thread is a better idea than
using a gluestick, and make sure symmetrical things
are actually symmetrical.

After some staring and discussion and a remark from Krispy and her Sister's dad, we decided to add Loki's name to his jacket.  (Their dad's comment was something along the lines of "You should put his name on there or else nobody will know what it is.")  We made Krispy write it out for us since she has the best handwriting and does fancy lettering too, and then the Sister and I set about hand-embroidering it because we are masochistic with a vision.

I'm pretty sure the reason it's pictured on this drying rack
is because the Sister was embroidering the last letter while sitting
outside with Loki and he had just drunk water and then rolled
in the dirt so his face was all muddy and he went trotting
up to her and was like HI MOMMY :D *BLEHMRBRMBLEAH*
and smeared his muddy face across the jacket,
so she had to wash it.

We sewing machined the last bit of velcro on today (and boy, that was a painful learning experience saga all its own) and FINALLY the jacket was done done DONE.

So, despite the heat, we plopped it on Loki for a quick photoshoot.  And look omg how handsome he is.

Hi.

Loki got a cookie for being a good boy, or as good a boy
as can be when he refuses to cooperate for the camera.

Not too shabby for a first attempt, eh?  It's even got a soft green plaid lining underneath and has batting sandwiched inside.  I've done very little machine sewing and never made clothing-type articles before for anything other than velveteen rabbits and dolls, and the Sister has never done any machine sewing before this or made any clothing as far as I know.  We are going to wallow in pride and bathe in hubris for the next few weeks, barring unforeseen apocalyptic tragedy like seams coming undone or fabric tearing.

Our master plan for all this is to start our own company and sell geeky dogwear for a million dollars and have Loki be our handsome model for everything.  I think we should make him a Tardis or dalek jacket next, or maybe a superhero one.  Or R2D2 would be awesome.  What do you think?

What's the most time-consuming thing you've ever done for your pet?  (For myself, it'd probably be making a cage for my rats when they decided they hated each other and could no longer be cagemates.  It was a pretty simple cage, but it took fricking forever.)