Have you purchased a Paracord DIY kit to make a dog collar with the Aztec Sun Bar? On this page you will find the instructions for knotting this collar. Of course you can also make this collar without this kit, you can find the materials on the product page.

It is handy to have these tools at hand: 

• Paracord needle Type III or crochet hook
• Blowtorch
• Scissors
• Teaspoon (for finishing off)
• Paracord jig

Starting the paracord collar

When you are making a dog collar with paracord, the set-up is an important part of the knotting. As you do not want your dog to get loose, you have to make sure that you create a safe set-up.

Determining the lengths

Before you can make the set-up, you have to know what length it should be. The rule that you can follow with the products in this kit is: circumference of the dog's neck (in cm) - 7 cm.

Are you making the collar for a dog with a neck circumference of 43 cm? Then the length of your set-up should be 36 cm (43 cm - 7 cm). In the picture below you can see which part this is.

You use the longest cord (in the colour Moss in the kit) for the set-up.

With this pattern, you make flowers with 6 petals each. The number of flowers you make depends on the length of your set-up. 

To calculate how many flowers you will have to knot, you divide the set-up length by 3. For a set-up with a length of 36 cm you would make 12 flowers.

Please note that these are all average values. Lengths may vary due to personal knotting styles. With this length we assume that you close the adapter at the level of the second hole. If the collar is too tight or too wide, you can easily change holes to make it fit.

 

Cords for the flowers

With most knots, you will need to add most or all of the cords to the beginning of your collar (the set-up) before you start knotting. With the Aztec Sun Bar design, you only add the cord for the first flower to the set-up. The other cords will come later on.

Every time you end a flower, you have to add the cord for the next flower. This gives you a lot of freedom in the order of the colours and you can even decide to change a colour or the order during the knotting process.

Cutting the cords to size

In the kit you will find 3 metres of each of the colours you are going to use for the flowers. You will need approximately 80 cm per flower. Cut these cords into pieces of at least 80 cm.

Please note: make sure not to cut the longest cord that you use for the set-up itself. This cord has to be in one piece to ensure the safety of the collar.

Knot the Aztec Sun Bar

Adding colours to collar set-up

As mentioned earlier, you will only add one cord to the set-up. After that, each time before you finish a flower, you add the rope for the next flower.

Start knotting

Now you’ll start knotting the collar itself. The video shows step by step how to make this Aztec Sun Bar knot. You repeat the same steps for every paracord flower.

 

Last flower

If you’re lucky, the last flower will fit exactly in the remaining space. However, it is also possible that you don’t have enough space for another whole flower. Then there are two things you can do. 

You could choose to knot the last flower partially. Because the biothane will be lying over the last flower, it will not be noticeable that the last flower is not complete.

The second option is to fill the remaining space by knotting cobra knots. Again, this will not attract much attention because the biothane of the adapter will cover it.

End of the collar

After finishing the last flower, you will start finishing the collar. The first thing you do is backstitching the two set-up cords. You do this by inserting these strands back into the set-up knots.

 

Adding beads to every flower

After backstitching these cords, it is time to complete the flowers by adding the sliding beads. The video shows you how to do this.

 

Finishing off each flower

When you have completed every flower with the flower bead, it’s time to finish off each flower individually. This might seem like a lot of work, but in practice it is not that bad.

 

What to do with rope leftovers?

Do you have some paracord left over? Then you can choose to make a paracord keychain in the form of a flower in the same style as the collar.