Tail Bag

One of the ladies at my barn has a horse with a gorgeous tail.  She got me started using Cowboy Magic Detangler, and I love love love it.  It works so well, and it is already helping make Walker's tail less gross, tangled, and dry.  I highly recommend it.

Anyway, she uses a tail bag to help keep her horse's tail clean.  There are many different types of tail bags, but I really like hers the best.  It turns out that a friend of hers made it for her, so I decided to make one too.  Thus, a project was born!

For those of you who may be interested in making one yourself, here's how I did it.

1. Dimensions

You will need only four strips of fabric of the following dimensions:

- one @ 1 metre by 7-10 cm

- three @ 1 metre by 14 - 20 cm (i.e. double 7 - 10 cm so you can create tubes)

If you are wondering why the dimensions are so loosey goosey this is because it depends on the thickness of  your horse's tail and the stretchiness of your fabric.  I thought my fabric was less stretchy than the fabric on my barn mate's tail bag so I used 10 - 11 cm sized tubes (20 - 22 cm in width) instead.  It turns out that my fabric wasn't really that stretchy at all and I probably could have used some more width.  The stretchier the fabric, the easier it is to stick your hands up the tubes (like you would with pantyhoes) to grab the tail.  Otherwise, you will need wider tubes.  Pick a width that makes it easy for you to stick your hands up the tubes.  Trust me.

Similarly, the only reason that the strips are one metre in length is because it depends on your horse's height and length of tail.  I used one metre so that I'd have lots extra, but in reality I ended up cutting off maybe 30 cm of the tubes when I adjusted it at the barn.  Better to start with plenty than not have enough.  It is easily chopped off.

What the tail bag will look like.
Remember that the tubes at the bottom are 7 - 10 cm in diameter
and thus need to be double that size in width to sew

2. Reinforcement 

After that, you take the one 7x100 cm strip and simply sew around the entire edge of the fabric (like a rectangle).  This is simply to reinforce the fabric from tears and from fraying.

Do the same with one of the short ends of each of the other three strips.  There's no need to do the other three ends but you can if you so desire.  In fact, I actually made a bit of a hem with these three - as in, I folded over a cm or so and sewed there to make them stronger.  This reinforced edge is the edge that attaches to the long strip at the top so you want them to be sturdy.

3. Making the Tubes

Next take the three bigger strips, fold them in half lengthwise, and sew along the long edge to create three tubes.  If you made a hem, like I did, make sure that the hem is facing outside when you go to sew (so that it will be inside when you turn them inside out).  Turn them inside out so that the seam doesn't show. 

3. Attaching the Tubes

Then you are going to sew the three tubes to the one 7x100 cm strip.  Turn the seam of the tube to the middle outside as in the picture below and sew the other side of the tube to the middle of the one 7x100 cm strip.  The end that you are attaching to the top strip should be the one that you reinforced in step 2 above.

When you go to sew the other two tubes onto the strip, overlap them slightly to help reinforce the structure.  I actually went across this line (the three tubes) twice with the sewing machine, just to be sure.

4. Fitting and Putting It On

I actually found it 10x easier to make the tail bag than I did to put it on.  This is because Walker hates me fussing with his tail and likes to rip it from my hands.  All you need to do is tie the long strip at the top around the horse's tail at the part where you're going to divide the tail into three for braiding.  At this point, you can pull out the ol' scissors and chop off the excess length that you no longer need.  Divide the tail into three parts, feed each part through one of the tubes, and then braid the three tubes.  Secure with an elastic at the end, and voila!  For good measure, I like to redo the long strip at the top after I've braided just to make it extra secure.  I will tie it several times and feed it through the tail for good measure.  I also left a bit of the tail unbraided at the end so that he has something to swat the flies with.