Bertie Sue is SENSITIVE, Y'all

Or picky. Whichever.

A year ago at just about this time, I made a sweater for Bertie Sue. I was inordinately proud of it, because, even if just a dog sweater, it was the first knitted object that I ever conceived of and knitted on my own without a pattern. And it was awesome.

Mostly.

I learned one important lesson while constructing that sweater: You should put the leg holes in where the legs end under the chest, not where they start up at the shoulder. This is an important feature for dog sweaters because doing it wrong adds a lot of unnecessary fabric across the chest and probably makes walking feel kind of funny. Miss Bert would consent to wear the sweater for trips in the car or to go outside for a quick potty, but she refused to go on walks while wearing the sweater. It may be that she is fashion conscious and the grab-bag quality didn't fit her personal style, but I think it's more likely that it felt strange to walk in.

So I cogitated on the problem for a while and decided that the best way to put the leg holes in exactly the right place is to leave them out altogether. Here is the result:

I found the purple mystery yarn in the yarn cabinet wound neatly into a cake with no label. No idea what that stuff is except that a flame test proves it to be an acrylic. (Bert won't be hanging out unattended in this sweater. That stuff melts.) The red ribbing is a design feature in the sense that I ran out of the purple mystery yarn and didn't have anything else to match or coordinate, so I decided to go with full-on clash instead. Embrace the ugly, people. The body is the honeycomb stitch most frequently seen of late in the Honey Cowl. The tummy is all ribbing so that if we manage to help Miss Bert lose the 5 pounds she needs to drop, it will still fit. I hope.

The innovation that made another dog sweater worth knitting is the single giant leg hole.

Sorry about the blurry photo, but that is an insanely difficult angle to photograph and that's the best I could get before Bert wandered off to see if Brew needed to have his rear end sniffed. (He did.)

So far, so good. She can run! She can jump! She can stroll leisurely up the block sniffing every third leaf!

Don't worry that Brewie might be chilly. He's always toasty in his ultra-hip fleece hoodie.

Bertie Sue's Grab Bag Sweater

On Saturday I realized three things: (1) There's no way the Christmas knitting will be finished by Christmas. It's just not happening, so there's no point in busting my rear over it. (2) It's going to be pretty nippy this week, with highs in the 20s. (3) Bertie Sue does not have her own sweater. She's been borrowing Brewster's ski coat, but it doesn't fit her very well.

So I dropped the Christmas knitting for about 6 hours to create Bertie Sue's Grab Bag Sweater.

In addition to being a grab-bag in the sense of using up yarn scraps, it's also kind of a grab-bag pattern. Following a real pattern just seemed like too much of a thing, so I cobbled together patterns I already had in my head. The nice, wide neck that doesn't squoosh tender doggy ears is actually the cast-on for the Nancy Lindberg Christmas Sock, and the increases for the leg holes are the thumb gusset from Ann Budd's Basic Glove Pattern. (Those are both Ravelry links. If you're not already a Ravelry member, you probably don't care anyway.)

Then I just kept knitting in the round until it was long enough under her tummy, cast off half the stitches, and then knit flat until it was long enough to cover the puppy butt. Generally, Bert was patient with the try-on sessions, but there was a point on Saturday night where she had had enough, so she started demonstrating some pretty effective passive resistance.

Don't worry about Brewster. In addition to the aforementioned ski coat, he has a warm hoodie and two store-bought sweaters to keep his tushie warm. He won't be freezing this week, either.

Now, back to the Super Secret Christmas Knitting!

Happy Holidays from Chez Furry Pants! 

Stay Warm!