The Sweater of the Tongue

There is a very good reason for the name of this post but you have to read this part before getting to the good stuff. So, this is about Darla's Sweater which is based on Casey's Coat from Stitch 'n Bitch Nation (thank you local library). When we got Darla a few weeks ago, I realized that if I didn't make this dog a sweater quick, we would never get to see her. Her favorite spot during these cold winter days and colder winter nights, is under the covers on our bed. She simply will not come out! Well, I also felt the need to actually order something from KnitPicks after drooling over the site for so long and therefore, a sweater begins. I picked Wool of the Andes for a couple of reasons: it was cheap, there were lots of colors, and I knew I could felt with the leftovers. I decided I was going to make Darla and Spanky matching sweaters but with the colors reversed. I picked Pink Cheeks for the main color of Darla's sweater with Onyz Heather for the stripes. I bought twice what I thought I needed so I could do both sweaters. Hers: Pink with Grey stripes and His: Grey with Pink stripes (I think he is secure enough in his maleness to pull this off). I did however make a knitters mistake and read the number of skeins on the pattern and not the yards and therefore I had ordered only half of what I planned. Luckily I have some other yarn for Spanky's Sweater but that's a future post. :)

Some notes about my puppy and the pattern: Darla is about 20 pounds and she's 18" from neck to tail, 13 1/2" neck, 21" around her chest, and lastly, 16" around her waist. I did very few modifications on this sweater because I have never knit anything like this before and I just did not know what to expect. I CO 70, did the 3" of ribbing, per pattern and added the 18 sts at the back as she calls for. I did the armholes per pattern but when I got to the other side of them I tried it on her and it looked a little loose so I decreased by 6 sts about 4 rows after the arms. The rest I knit per pattern. It seems to fit her pretty well and it also fits my other Boston who is about 23" around his chest and 21" around his belly. It actually probably fits him better so his will be the same size and I'll knit her with about an 1 1/2 removed from the overall dim. I will also knit more inches of ribbing and therefore lengthen the distance from the top to the armholes. I think because their chests are so big it would fit better and be less likely to ride down their necks like it does a bit now. I will also taper the arm hole ribbing a bit just because it tends to stick out a bit on the sides.

I did get clever however. I started thinking about how I could make this smaller for her without having to rip it all out. I was thinking about sewing the seam tighter or something and then I remembered this is 100% wool. Yeah! I can felt it. I filled my sink with hot water, put the sweater in with some Eucalan and agitated it by hand until the body shrunk by 1" and the neck by 1 1/2". As I sit here typing, Darla is wearing her sweater next to me and it fits much better now.

And now, the real reason behind the title....I present....The Tongue!!!