Fifteen Cups of Tea a day and a Cat: Halloween Parade of Doggies!

So what's a crafty gal to do when her kids get too old to make costumes for? Make them for her dogs of course!

I have to admit, I always felt bad for animals whose humans do things like this to them:

But costumes needn't be over the top. My cuddlebugs don't mind wearing sweaters and such in the cold weather, so I figured I would make something based on a similar pattern.

My Mom & Dad came to visit for the weekend. My Dad is happy raking leaves and working outside this time of year, but my Mom and I love Halloween and sewing, so we set forth to make our doggies costumes.
The local dog park was having a Halloween event: costume parade and contest, along with refreshments for both doggies and their humans. We had to go!

Mom decided on a simple cape for her dog, Sparky. She found a pattern on the internet and got some awesome blue cotton fabric with little stardust swirlies, and a darker blue fabric with little stars for the collar part. She was thinking he might be a superhero, but ended up making him a wizard from Harry Potter. She put a lightning bolt instead of the star in gold fabric on the back.

Cape pattern

Here at Tea-and-Cat blog, there are plenty kitties to help with the sewing!

Mom showing off the near finished Cape

My Mom & Dad's dog, Sparky, is a Pomeranian* (non-standard size, probably what the breed looked like prior to breeders miniaturizing them) He is six years old and very lovable.

One of the ancestors of the Pomeranian breed is the Spitz hound. There are a few different types of "Spitze" :
German, Finnish, Asian, and the Dutch Keeshond. They were bred originally to help hunting, herding, and pulling sleds, and all other type of fun stuff they did up in the Arctic regions back then. Sparky looks remarkably like a German Spitz/Dutch Keeshond .

Although I'm fairly certain my Dad does not have Sparky herding any of the local squirrels, we had to check every now and then that he wasn't hooked up to a wheelbarrow moving leaves to the giant compost pile in our
backyard (jk!)

So my original idea was matching cowboy outfits for Calvin & Charlie, but somehow ended up being closer to Mexican Serapes with little matching hats. I used fabric from my fabric stash, some chocolate brown corduroy type material, black denim, and lots of rick-rack for trim!

Kitty! Mama Cass helps with the patterning

Laying out the trim

Sewing it all up

Finished Doggie Serape

Off we went to the Dog Park Halloween Event, they thoroughly enjoyed the fresh air, which was pretty warm for this time of year.

Sparky at the park (oops, he blinked!)

Sparky in his wizard ensemble

Calvin in his costume

overhead view (the pink scarf is what I use to sling walk him)

Charlie in his costume, (The hat kept slipping down)

There were a variety of pups in costumes, I have included some pictures below. They also had a bunch of prizes for different categories - pairs, character from a book, funniest...
I entered my guys in the 'pairs' category, but alas, did not take a prize.

Sparky took second place in the Book Character category. My mom ended up bringing home a big basket full of fancy doggie stuff, which they generously shared with my guys too.