Dog Sweater Help

How-to Questions
1

So, I’m making a sweater for my dog, Brutus. He’s a very hefty Boston Terrier, so i’m having to heavily modify a pattern.

As of right now, I’m at the curved line on his shoulder (see sketch), just past the part where I made the spot for the leg holes. But my ordeal is this:

Over the next few rows, I need to make the top of the sweater only two more inches, yet the part under his chest needs to be another 4 inches. I’ve drawn up a rough sketch…

The arrow indicates the direction in which i’m working.

Do you guys have any suggestions? I’m not sure where to go from here…

His chest is very large, and the pattern as written would end up looking like a hoody on him because his neck is practically non-existant on top.

Any help or opinions would be greatly appreciated…

Thanks!
–Riss

2

In order to make the chest part longer than the top, you’d have to do short rows. I can’t really be specific about how many, but maybe you could do them as you go and stop when the chest is long enough?

3

And then pick up enough stitches along whats left to do the ribbing? That might work…

So i’d have to bind off the ones in the middle/top of the neck then?

4

I think you could just work back and forth across the chest part and leave the top stitches on the needle. Do a gradual increase from the center of the chest. Kind of like work to 10 stitches past the center of the chest, wrap and turn, work 20 stitches, w & t, work 30 st, w&t, work 40, w & t, etc, until you have the chest the depth you want.

Now, mind you, this is just off the top of my head. I haven’t done it, but this is what I would try.

OR

If you think it would work better for the shape of your (adorable) dog, maybe it would work better to start the short rows wide and gradually make them narrower. This way you could pick up the wraps from the previous rows.

Either way, when the chest part was deep enough, you could just knit a round or two using all the stitches and then rib for the collar.

I hope this makes some sort of sense.:lol:

5

Riss,

This sounds hard! This is why I’ve hesitated to make my mother’s…uh…[I]bulky[/I] Scottish terrier a sweater. That was one of my foremost objectives when I learned to knit, but it seems tough and I haven’t attempted it yet.

I’m interested to know how you work this out.

6

I just wanted to let you guys know that i’m winging it, but writing down everything I’m doing, so that maybe I can do the same for the other side. hehehe. It’ll be an interesting learning process.

7

You could do the rest as you do when shaping the front neck of a pullover. Knit straight from leg holes for the 2 inches, then Bind off centre back sts and keep working the rest over each side and chest area, decreasing gradually at neck edges, finishing up under chin and around chest.
Hope that makes sense.

8

Thats actually just about what I’m doing. This is my first ever sweater, dog or human… so it’s a learning experience. I’ll post pictures in another day or two :slight_smile: