Custom plush collar guide!
Here's my little guide/tutorial for making a custom collar for your plush! You can use pretty much any printed fabric you want though I do recommend printed cotton (what I used for Nito's collar) or if you have a sublimation printer you can make your own printed fabric as well!
NOTES - This is not an adjustable collar, there are different steps for making one of those you will need to look up a guide for that.
Some kind of webbing material (I am using polyester webbing)
Sewing machine (You could try and hand sew this with a running stitch but it may be difficult!)
Make sure your webbing fits through your buckle and ring!
Step 1 - Cut your webbing and fabric to length
First we need to cut the webbing to length, it is important to remember we need some extra length to secure the ring and the buckles in place. you can wrap the material around your plushies neck and then add a couple inches extra to either side or fold the material over and then hold it against your plushies neck to get the length you need.
Afterwards you can cut the material, if you're using polyester webbing then I do recommend using a lighter to melt where it was cut a bit to prevent fraying
next you'll want to lay your webbing down on your fabric and cut it out, make sure to leave extra material around the edges like you can see here
Now we'll fold the excess fabric edges underneath and pin it to the webbing. I actually recommend folding the edges and then ironing them before pinning since it'll be waaaay easier and hold its shape, I brute force my way because i'm lazy. This part can be tricky so take your time with it and try to keep the folded edges as even as possible (basically avoid having one side folded under more than the other)
Once this is done we can begin sewing!
Step 3 - Sewing the fabric to the webbing
Now you'll sew all the way around to secure the fabric in place, try your best to keep things even I usually look at the edge of the machine and try and keep a consistent distance from the edge of the material i'm sewing.
I like to do two passes around, one further in and one right on the edge to ensure theres no gaps where the folded edge didn't get sewn down (example in second image), so I recommend you do two as well no need to use pins on the second round since it'll already be secured down
Step 4 - Adding the buckles and stuff
Now we'll add the buckles and the ring! First slide the ring onto the collar and then add your buckle, make sure to have enough length on the end to fold over both the ring and the buckle! Once you like the placement you can sew down the end, make sure to move the ring out of the way for this and be sure to sew on the top side
You'll want to sew forwards and backwards a few times to really secure it, I usually do around 5 - 6 passes
With that secured we'll now put the ring back in place and sew along the other side to secure it in place. Be careful! make sure you do not sew along the metal ring!
With the ring secure we can now finish off our collar! Slide the buckle on the other end, you can now test fit the collar on your plush and adjust the length by moving the buckle as needed
Once you've got it how you like sew down the edge like we did before making sure to do multiple passes to really secure it in place. Once that's done you're finished!
You can add tags, charms, anything really to the collar if you like. If you have an embroidery machine or do hand embroidery you can add their name directly to the collar like I did or even use an iron on paper to add a name that way as well
I hope this is helpful feel free to leave questions I will try and answer when I am able to ^^