Easy Dog Sweater

This weekend I learned how to knit a dog sweater.  It was an inadvertent project, brought on by my friend Tony’s request for a dog sweater after I made him a scarf for Christmas.  The last sweater I made was with my mother’s help and was over 30 years ago, so needless to say I was a little nervous.  But then I thought what the heck, what’s the worst that’s going to happen? It’s either going to be too big or small, or guy-whompas, and I can unravel it and start again.

That’s one of the best things about recovering from abuse…you learn that it’s okay to make mistakes, it’s okay to laugh at yourself, it’s okay to try again until you figure it out.  There’s a lot of freedom from that.

So I searched the internet until I found the easiest possible dog sweater.  Here’s the link to it: http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/80933AD.html

You might need to sign up to get the pattern, but if you are looking for something quick (one night!) it’s a winner.  It’s not fancy but it’s cute.

I didn’t have bulky yarn and I read on other sites to use wool yarn as it dries better if it gets wet, so what I substituted was 2 strands of worsted weight wool.  With the garter stitch it is a very stretchy and forgiving sweater.

I have to laugh at myself though, and so did my husband.  I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to stitch it together, so at first there was no opening for the dog’s head! LMAO! I figured it out and if you need help on that just comment on this blog post.

I’m going to make another one for Molly-Dog.  She’s wearing the smallest size, and she’s about 11 pounds, but I think I’m making it in the one size higher because my gauge was slightly off and I’m quite frankly too lazy to figure it out on this project.

Here’s a side view.  Molly is always afraid I am about to steal her soul when I photograph her so she always looks away.