How to make a woven fleece Christmas wreath dog tug toy. This specially shaped tug toy is a doggone great Christmas craft for weaving fans. I don’t think Humphrey would approve of it being displayed instead of played with, though! Haha. Much like our DIY dog treat wreath, it would probably lead to protests. Get the DIY details on how this festive and fun DIY Christmas wreath tug toy was made. Woofs!
Festive Tug Toy Fun
There are all kinds of ways that you can weave and shape fleece dog tug toys for extra festive fun. Making combined shapes, like this wreath, takes a little extra effort but can be lots of extra fun – both for making and for playing. For a much easier approach to holiday tug toys, you can use festive colours in a simpler straight tug. They’re still go to favourites for fun at our place, too!
New to weaving? Beginners might prefer starting with a simple box knot tug toy (or spiral tug toy) to get comfy with the techniques before experimenting with some of our crazier projects, like this one. It can be tricky to gauge the scale/size if you’re unfamiliar with making tugs. You’ll need to scale and manipulate the shapes of the tug pieces to make this Christmas wreath dog tug toy. We’ll show you how below.
Weaving a DIY Christmas Wreath Dog Tug Toy
Tug Toy Materials
The materials and craft supplies used in making the DIY Christmas wreath dog tug toy shown are:
- Polar fleece fabric
- Scissors
A basic tug toy made with these weaving styles uses four long narrow strips for fabric. Our wreath uses four long strips (two red and two white) to form the circle for the wreath and four long strips (green) to create the bow. You can scale the size of the toy to suit your dog by altering the width and/or length of the fleece strips. See our post on fleece dog tug toy sizes for tips.
Weaving Methods
The tug pieces of our DIY Christmas wreath dog tug toy were made a square knot. The pieces could easily be made using a spiral weaving method (or other styles) instead, if you prefer. The wreath would be very cute with a diagonal candy cane like striping from a spiral weave.
Weaving a Circle Tug for the Body of the Wreath
The round wreath shape in this toy is made exactly the same way as the O in our Valentine XO tug toys. See the Valentine tug post for detailed step-by-step tutorial with pictures for making and closing the circle, if needed. Instructions are also included below.
Weaving the tug for the wreath loop:
- Cut four long strips of fleece. The length and width are at your discretion to scale the toy to suit your pet. The strips in the toys as shown were approximately 2m long x 5cm wide.
- Tie a temporary knot securing the strips near one end as a starting point for weaving. This temporary knot will be undone before connecting your circle, so not too tight! You can undo it any time after your weaving is secure.
- Weave using a square/box knot (as shown) or other method of your choice. Detailed instructions as well as additional diagrams and step-by-step photos for this weaving method are available in our comprehensive post on making square knot dog tug toys.
- Weave until you start to approach the end of your strips.
Closing the circle:
- If you have not already done so, undo your temporary knot.
- If using two different colours, as shown, align the ends so that the colour patterns line up.
- Incrementally loop and tie some of the strands together, one by one, to secure your circle. This may involve pulling some strands through to the opposite side of the tug. Not all strands need to be tied – just enough to close tightly and secure the loop. Take care to try an create a uniform look that blends in with the existing weave, but the joint will be covered by the bow so there’s no to be perfect.
- Cut extra fleece from the ends of the strips, if needed, leaving just enough excess to allow you to tuck them into the tug body. Take care to follow the pattern of the weave where possible so that the closure is concealed. As noted above, don’t worry if the closure point is somewhat visible, though. It’s going to be hidden under the wrapped bow, anyway. Easy peasy!
Adding and Weaving the Tug Toy Bow
Attaching the fleece strips for the bow:
- Cut four long strips of fleece. The length and width are at your discretion to scale the toy to suit your pet as noted above.
- Loop the fleece around the joint of the wreath loop so that it is centred, with equal stands of fleece on each side, then pass the through itself into a flattish half knot at the top to hold them in place. This will be the starting point for weaving each of the two tug pieces to make the bow.
Weaving the tugs for the bow:
- Weave using a square/box knot (as shown) or other method of your choice. Detailed instructions as well as additional diagrams and step-by-step photos for this weaving method are available in our comprehensive post on making square knot dog tug toys.
- Weave one side of the strands and then the other to create two roughly equal lengths of woven tug. They need to be long enough to fold back to the starting point (each will form a loop for the bow). Don’t overdo the length of the tugs though. Make sure you leave enough fleece at the ends to join them into the finished bow.
Forming and finishing the bow:
How you tie and finish the bow is completely up to you. It can be as simple as a knot and trim/tuck or as fussy as you please. Here is how the pictured tug toy was tied and finished (as shown in the collage above) for a pretty pre-play wreath tug.
- Bend one tug into the centre and pull one of the three strands through the loop around the wreath. Repeat for the other tug to form the second half of the bow tug. These pulled through strands of fleece will form the dangling ends of “ribbon” for the finished bow.
- Position the remaining three strands of each tug to the top/rear of the toy and arrange the bow so that you are happy with alignment of your weave and positioning of your bow tug loops.
- Take a strand from one bow tug and feed it through the centre of the bow, wrap across the base of the opposite side of the bow, to the back, and pull it through the centre loop to secure. Repeat for the other side of the bow tug.
- Tie these strands securely at the back, trim excess if/as needed, and tuck the loose ends into the tug.
- Of the four remaining strands at the top/rear, tie the lower two together securely at the back. Trim excess if/as needed, and tuck the loose ends into the tug.
- Take the two remaining strands, wrap over the centre loop all the way from their starting point at top rear, around the wreath, and up the front. Tuck in deeply to secure. This may come loose during play (it can be re-tucked, if you wish) but it helps to finish the rear of the tug into a neatly covered loop instead of having visible knots.
- Trim the ends of the dangling ribbons if/as you wish, and enjoy!
Additional Toy Making Help and Information
As noted above, the detailed instructions for weaving square knot tug toys (or detailed instructions for weaving spiral tug toys if you prefer) are available in our archives. See the posts for step-by-step photos and diagrams for the base weaving methods for the tugs used to create the shapes in this wreath. Helpful information on weaving tugs is also available in our tug toy FAQs, tips, and troubleshooting mini-series:
Safety first, furfriends! Remember, no matter what a toy is made of or how it’s made, toys are meant for supervised interactive play. Know your dog before giving him or her any new toy. Some dogs try to eat toys or parts (whether bought or handmade) and that’s doggone dangerous. Toys are for playing, and playtime is always safer (and more fun!) with you involved. You can read more in our dog toy safety post, including tips and helpful links for safer playtime. Have fun and play safe!
