How to Make Over-The-Collar Dog Bandanas

DIY dog bandanas are very quick and fun to make and they’re a great way to use up scraps from other projects. I’m using Designs By JuJu’s No Dip Dog Bandana which gives suggested sizes for most breeds of dogs. This is an over-the-collar design, which is great because it won’t come off. 

The best news is, with the exception of one line sewn on the regular sewing machine, the dog bandana is made entirely in the hoop!

Supplies

Check out Embroidery Supplies JuJu Uses. 

• Fabrics: front and a coordinated back
• Tear away stabilizer
• Temporary spray adhesive
• Embroidery needle
• Scissors or a rotary cutter and ruler
• Pins
• Iron

Designs Used in this Tutorial

• No Dip Dog Bandana 
• Tippy Toes Embroidery Font

Fabrics

The over-the-collar, dog bandana requires two fabrics: one for the front and a coordinating print for the back. Make sure your fabrics are washed and dried. If you’re using an all-over print, you can cut the rectangle the size of your hoop as you’re preparing all your supplies. If you’re using a directional fabric, make sure that the direction is correct. However, if there’s a particular picture on the fabric you want to feature on the bandana, don’t cut it ahead of time; wait until the placement lines are sewn, then center the feature image in the middle of the triangular part and trim away the excess. 

Basic Directions

Here are the basic directions for making the No Dip Dog Bandana without any additional embroidery. You’ll be amazed the first time you make one, how quickly you go from start to finish. There are only three stitch lines in the design. The first is the placement line for the front fabric of the bandana. The second stitch line will tack down that front fabric and make the placement line for the casing. The third stitch line tacks down the bandana back fabric, leaving an opening for turning the bandana right side out. 

1. Hoop tear away stabilizer, load it into the machine, and sew the placement line for the fabric. Remove the hoop and lightly spray the embroidery area with adhesive spray. Place the FRONT fabric RIGHT SIDE UP, making sure the fabric extends beyond the edges of the placement stitches.

2. Sew the 2^nd design stitch. This does double duty, holding the front fabric down and as the placement stitch for the back of the bandana.

3. Place the BACK fabric RIGHT SIDE DOWN, covering the placement line. Either pin the four corners down or very lightly spray just the corners of the backing fabric. If you overspray you’ll find that you’ll have too much residue when the bandana is right sides out and you’re trying to press it with the iron. Sew the final stitch line.

4. Remove the hoop from the machine and unhoop the project. Tear away the stabilizer. Trim the seam allowances to ¼”, except for at the turning opening. I usually taper up leaving a little more than the ¼” so it’s easier to turn in when sewing the opening closed in the last step. You can do this with scissors, or if you have them, a ruler and rotary cutter. Trim the corners.

Turn right side out and, using your fingers, a crochet hook, a point turner or any other item which won’t cut through the fabric, push out the point and corners. Fold in the seam allowance at the turning opening, pinning if you need to until it’s pressed. Iron well. I find if I roll the seams with damp fingers it helps in ironing a nice crisp seam.

5. Turn the top of the dog bandana, the casing for the collar, over so that the backing fabric just covers over the stitching line you see on the front.

6. Press, pin, and sew down a scant ¼’ from the edge.

That’s it. You’ve made an over-the-collar dog bandana!

Models, Harley and Teddy. Their owner said that, unlike bandanas that tie on, these over-the-collar bandanas didn’t bother her dogs at all.

Embroidering Names on Dog Bandanas

But wait, you say, you’ve seen dog bandanas with names on them. How do you add an embroidered name to the bandana, and more importantly, can you do it in one hooping? Yes! You just might need to jump through a couple hoops to do it. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.) 

I’m making this bandana without any purchased software, but my Baby Lock lets me add one design to another. This means I need to make a file with the dog’s name on it to add to the bandana design later. I’m going to use DBJJ’s Tippy Toes font. Reese's dog bandana is a size large. Looking at the instructions, I see the width of the casing band is 2”, so I’m going to use a 1” font that I can center within that 2” band. JuJu gives the measurements of all the sizes in the Product Details for the bandana on the product's page on her website. I make the name using the free version of Embrilliance and save it on my USB drive. I have already saved the bandana design on the USB drive. 

Using the USB drive, open the Designs By JuJu’s No Dip Dog Bandana, size L, design on your machine  and then open and add the file with the name lettering. I position the name about ½” from the edge and centered from the left and right sides. No matter the orientation of the design on your screen, make sure the name is upside down, pointing to the point of the bandana. You can see I made sure to do that on the Reese and Rooney photos.

Casing is 2 inches wide.
Length from top of casing to point is 6 inches.
Width is approximately 7 inches.

Note: This is where I alter the order of the steps because my machine won’t let me edit their order. I also change the order of the fabrics being placed.

My machine wants to sew the color stops in the standard order:  placement stitch, tackdown stitch, final tackdown for the last fabric and then the name. But that won’t give the results we want so we're going to improvise.

4. I embroider the name.

5. I lightly spray the four corners of the FRONT fabric (or you can pin it), place it right side down, and sew the final tackdown line. Make sure you’ve sewn the name before this final color stop!

6. Remove from the machine and remove the hoop. Tear away the stabilizer. Trim the seam allowances to ¼” except for above the turning opening. I usually taper up leaving a little more than the ¼” so it’s easier to turn in when sewing the opening closed in the last step. You can do this with scissors, or if you have them, a ruler and rotary cutter. Trim the corners.

7. Turn right sides out and using your fingers, a crochet hook, a point turner or any other item which won’t cut through the fabric, push out the point and corners. Fold in the seam allowance at the spot left open for turning, pinning if you need to until it’s pressed. Iron well. I find if I roll the seams with damp fingers it helps in ironing a nice crisp seam.

8. You’ll see there is a stitched line on the back of the bandana.  Fold the name of the dog to the front of the bandana until  the backing/coordinated fabric would just cover that line if it were on the front of the bandana.  If you look at the 2nd picture below, I flipped over a little of the side so you can see how the edge of the casing on the front lines up with the placement line on the back.

9. Press, pin, and sew down a scant ¼’ from the edge.

When using a matching thread, you can barely see the placement or topstitching lines on the back. 

Here's another one for Reese:

Remember, the order of sewing for a basic, over-the-collar bandana is front fabric, then back fabric. The order when you want to add embroidery is back fabric, name, then front fabric. Both stitch up super quick.

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Carolyn McGinnis

Carolyn McGinnis is an embroiderer, quilter, gardener, ocean lover, teacher, librarian, wife, parent, and grandmother. She's still stunned at how admiring a student's embroidered 100 Days of School shirt ended up being a life-changing moment that rapidly went from learning machine embroidery to a notebook chock full of Designs by JuJu.