I recently purchased a bunch of Ridgeline gear from Ruffwear for my #ServiceDog and it’s awesome stuff; the heavy-duty magnetic Fidlock buckles are especially cool! But unfortunately, the XS harness is a bit too large around his neck, even at its smallest setting.
Nothing some simple #sewing can’t fix, though!
https://ruffwear.ca/products/ridgeline-harness
🧵 1 / 7
🧵 2 / 7
The easiest, least obtrusive way to shorten this webbing means I’ll have to sew very close to the adjustment buckle and there won’t be much space to sew comfortably, but on the bright side, it’s only three layers of webbing that I need to sew through.
Oh, and I’m going to shorten *both* sides by the same amount: 1½” per side.
🧵 3 / 7
After using a seam ripper to unpick the factory stitches, I used my hot knife to trim the webbing by 1½” + ½” folded under = 2”.
🧵 4 / 7
I thought I could sew all three layers in one go, but since there was so little room to manipulate the looped webbing under the presser foot, the whole thing shifted the first time I sewed it. After unpicking it, I sewed/machine basted just the fold first, before switching to a zipper foot and #sewing the three layers together.
🧵 5 / 7
I anticipated that this would be difficult to sew because of how little room there would be after looping the webbing, plus needing to sew so close to the adjustment buckle, but it proved to be a little more difficult than I expected.
Still, I was pleased with the results after #sewing the webbing.
🧵 6 / 7
After completing one side, I still had to do the same thing on the other…
It doesn’t look like a huge change, but it’s the difference between the front collar/neck portion having a circumference of 13” vs 16”.
🧵 7 / 7
After shortening the webbing, it fits my dog so much better now! It’s a great harness, for sure, and will be great under his #ServiceDog vest.
I just think that maybe I should have shortened it a little bit more because in the summer when I shave him, it might need to be tightened a bit, but this is already at its smallest. I can adjust the front to make it larger, but not smaller, while the middle and rear sections have lots of room both ways.
🧵 8 / 7
Interesting observation: it took me just under 90 minutes to complete the modifications (measuring, unpicking, cutting, threading the machine, testing settings, #sewing, etc.) from the time I took the first photos of my dog wearing the unmodified harness until the last photos I took of him wearing the modified harness.
And it took me just over 90 minutes to edit the photos, write ALT text, etc., and post about it here on Mastodon.
Daniel Menjívar
Drew Scott Daniels