My newest dog sweater release is one of those things that came full circle from where I started with all of this ‘knitting to match my dog’ stuff. Let’s rewind.
I’ve been knitting since 2003, mostly socks, there was actually a stretch of about 10 years when literally all I knit was socks. So, I’ve been knitting for almost 20 years but it wasn’t until we adopted Nacho in 2019 that I started knitting to match him. The very first sweater I successfully knit myself, the Super Simple Summer Sweater by Joji, was a really fun knit and I cast on immediately upon finishing it for a version for Nacho!
Please bare in mind that I had never knitted a dog sweater before and hadn’t thought much about the chest increases or the armholes or any of the details at all really. Since the patter was very simple, it was just thick stripes after all, and since Nacho was very slim in those days, it fir without issue and we happily paraded around in our matching sweaters. I mean, I was happily parading around, I don’t think Nacho cared either way. He is part chihuahua and he gets cold easily, so he does seem to like wearing sweaters.
So this was such a hit that of course I declared I’d do the same with the next sweater I made. So sweater #2 was the Dream Sweater by Claudia Q for Ewe Knit. It has a colourwork yoke and some textured stitches. I am aware of how overconfident I am, and of course knitting the dog version of this sweater was something that benefited from my blind confidence for sure. I was still very new to armhole placement and had not mastered magic loop knitting so the armholes were a little too low, to accommodate for the colourwork, and the laddering from my terrible magic loop, right there front and center – was not my best moment.
However, now that I have been at this for a while, I tried my hand at it again in honor of Ewe Knit hosting a knitalong for their Dream Sweater, and this version is much, much better. The original, the one for people, is done bottom up and because of the tummy shaping it is so much easier / better to do dog sweaters top down so that’s how I designed my dog version. The colourwork is the same, but I did have to take some creative licensing (with the blessing of the original designer, of course) to make it work for multiple sizes.
This is the version that is now available on Ravelry, LoveCrafts, Etsy and Payhip and will soon also be available in kits at EweKnit!