Dear Ann:
I know I said I was going to knit a summer top after I finished my Fort Tryon Wrap, but then I was looking for a book under my nightstand. I came across my copy of Woolly Woofers, by Debbie Bliss.
I will give it to you straight, Ann: all bets are off.
At least they are off for as long as it will take me to knit a Give-A-Dog-A-Bone Coat for a much-missed terrier, size small.
Isn’t it the cutest? I didn’t read the pattern all the way through at first, but I’ve now discovered why it’s called a coat and not a sweater: there is a lining. I think I can handle it. I’m going to root around for an old down coat from one of the kids and see if I can do an Alabama Chanin/Patagonia-style upcycled liner. It will be fun, in a multi-craftual way. Maybe I’ll even do it on July 29, 30 and 31, in celebration of Summer Stitch Fest.
(What is Summer Stitch Fest? “Summer Stitch Fest is an online festival celebrating making clothes by hand. During the last weekend of July, makers are invited to participate, using any or all methods of making a stitch, be it sewing, knitting or crocheting and then sharing their handmade clothes on social media. Created by Sonya Philip of 100 Acts of Sewing, the festival runs from July 29th to 31st. There is no sign up or any other commitment to make, simply use the hashtag #summerstitchfest16 to share what you make.”)
I’m a lawyer, you know, and in my professional opinion, a dog coat qualifies under the Summer Stitch Fest rules. It is “clothes,” and I am making it by hand.
The yarn is Jill Draper Makes Stuff Hudson, It might be the moss stitch talking, but I haven’t loved knitting with a yarn this much since the late, lamented Rowan Magpie. (Moment of silence for Magpie. If anyone has any memories of Magpie to share, please come on up.) Hudson is a beautifully constructed, round and springy yarn. And red is Olive’s signature color.
I’ve reached the neck shaping, so it won’t be long before I do the belly strap. I hope my Hudson holds out. The other thing I learned when I read the pattern to the end is that the bone is not knitted; Debbie breezily instructs the maker to “cut a bone shape, approximately 17cm/7 1/2in long, from suede.” I’m going to wait until I get there and see if a bone-shaped piece of suede — or perhaps felt?–presents itself. The bone does sort of make the whole outfit.
And why is my terrier being missed at the moment? Olive is in the Hamptons, partying her head off (chasing turkeys off the property) with the other gilded youth (Charlie, also a terrier). She is seven years old this month, and I thought I knew all her bad behaviors. But last night I received this photo:
This is a new low. I don’t know what motivated her to move from the sofa-back cushions to the tabletop, but I think it had to do with the fan in the background, and it being July.
She gets a new coat anyway.
Love,
Kay
That dog deserves a coat, no question.
Olive! You have another modeling assignment coming up!
Now, if you can only convince The Lady With The Food to make you an elegant winter coat of cashmere, with mink trim and Swarovski crystals. You know, very Jackie O. Oh, and the matching silk/alpaca wrap for when you come in. If you do convince her, maybe you can use it toward your law degree. . . .
Olive is the sweetest! Perhaps her misbehavior is just an attempt to get your attention — she’s seen all the knitting you’ve been doing for yourself and wants to be sure she gets some, too!
Lucky Olive – a new coat and a holiday!
And sharing my Rowan Magpie memory, in 1996 I knitted Milli – a Kim Hargreaves design from the Rowan 20 Magazine – a colourful, big, comfy cardie – which I lined as that made it a lot easier to get on and off, so I will now start calling it a coat! Still in use, and as snowy and windy here in Tassie, may well wear it to work tomorrow….
(And think I still have half a skein of Magpie in my stash the Welsh colour way)
Hold onto that skein!
My actress daughter who lives in NYC and holds down four jobs while auditioning most days has tried to explain to me, her midwestern mother, how dead everything is in NYC in the summer and how everyone goes to the Hamptons. Well, I hadn’t believed her, because while things slow down here a little, it is hot but just like any other time unless you are a farmer. From this post, I guess I need to believe her if even dogs go to the Hamptons to vacation in July!
There are some ways in which New York is still living in the last century and one of them is that many people try to get away in August, and the schools don’t start until after Labor Day. (That’s two of them.) I’m happy that I’ve been here long enough to remember that the old guys used to wear seersucker suits in the heat. That had died out by the 90s (or they had) but it was like time travel for a kid from Omaha. I felt like I was in an old movie. Good luck to your daughter! That is such a cool thing to do.
Sigh. Nothing gets to me like a man in a seersucker suit. It’s the sexy bishop look.
Double sigh. Seersucker suit and a hand-tied bowtie. Visions of my dandy of a grandpa taking my ex-flapper grandma out for supper on Friday nights.
I have to say, every time Rowan culls another well-loved yarn, which they seem to do often, (Wool Cotton, for real?) the aged among us sigh and say “Remember Magpie?” And PS, there is a book coming out in late September with a Dog Coat in it….
WOOL COTTON FOR REAL?
Yup.
Olive says: What happens in the Hamptons, stays in the Hamptons.
No shame in her game.
Olive on the table! What next? I will tell you this: I am not letting Coco-the-terrier see this picture!!
Terriers are always plotting, there is no stopping them when they get a great idea in their heads.
“This is a new low.”
Or a new high.
Perhaps next she’ll end up on top of the refrigerator like some cats.
Yep, Olive has realized she is cat-sized, and should take advantage of the fact.
Olive is adorable and will look chic in that clever bespoke coat (lined!). Seven! And she still looks like a puppy…on the table no less.
OLIVE! OLIVE, NO! WE DO NOT DO THAT IN THIS HOUSE!
Oh, I missed seeing Olive. She will look fetching in her new red coat. MUST. INCLUDE. BONE.
Too funny! Why do small dogs think they’re cats?
I know that models do seem to live by very different rules than the rest of us, but Olive, you have shocked me too my core! Dogs On The Table?! What is this world coming to? (I can hear all my ancestors rolling in their graves). Nice coat though.
She is the Kate Moss of terriers–the shock passes and then we forgive her everything.
A higher perch than usual? Maybe she’s looking for you. (Cue violin music here.)
The bone is a must. Corduroy, ultrasuede, felt, or any scrap of washed wool or tweed would be a glorious accent to that red. Would she wear a beret, too?
TWEED! It must be tweed!
Thank you, Clare!
Whimsical-but-practical knitting is my favorite, and I agree that a tweed would be a nice touch. You could, if you wanted to get extra fancy, knit a square of fabric in a herringbone pattern and then felt it and cut out the bone shape. (Nicky Epstein’s Knitting Never Felt Better could provide inspiration in that department.) Or you could go old school, and knit an off-white bone and felt it. http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/felted-dog-bone
Also, the book includes several beret/tam/deerstalker hat options. Debbie was having a laugh, for sure.
Olive is not only cute and charming but clever. Love the coat. Is the color more “heirloom tomato” or “NY strip steak” red? My very own Toby the Wonder Dog (a rescue so you know he’s exceptional) likes the idea of a coat but is concerned that it would be too much here in Southern CA.
I think of all the AC in Southern CA and I think Toby the WD needs a cardigan at the very least.
Olive’s coat is much more of a strip steak red, very hard to photograph. It has some streaks of oxblood as well.
MacDuff the Cat says that dogs should stay off of the table.
That’s the first time I’ve heard MacDuff as a cat name! My mom’s westie (my dog-brother) is named MacDuff, for the dog in the fabulous childrens’ books, but he does go by Duffy most of the time. He would be scandalized by Terrier on Table, but one of his westie predecessors would approve. The late, lamented Darby was known to occasionally climb up onto the deck furniture–first a chair, then the table. He would stand there and survey his territory (the backyard woods) while his brother Mac (Mr. McGregor, for the Beatrix Potter character) barked at him from the deck surface, doing his best to tattle to the people.
Mind you, he wouldn’t have tried that indoors. Sofa, yes, that was allowed, but NEVER a table.
Duffy is a super-smart boy and was a January baby. During his first summer, it was awfully hot. He liked to flop right on top of the air conditioning vent on the floor in front of the kitchen sliding door. We had to teach him to lie NEXT to it so we all could share the cool air. Silly puppy (who now is 10.5 and still a puppy).
Olive will look adorable in that coat. I can’t wait to see pictures.
Haha. We have a newly rescued terrier mix named Barry. He has gotten up on the table. He is from Alabama. We have pointed out that those are NOT appropriate manners in MN. (Also, we are FRIENDLY to ducks……) However, we forgive him because he makes us laugh so often, and he is so important to the children. He will definitely be needing a coat this winter – particularly since he did NOT like the snow at all when he first arrived. Because we live in MN I was thinking of something of the boiled wool variety (very Scandinavian….even though we are not, ourselves, actually Scandinavian). I’d better get knitting!
I like the how Olive is nestled amongst the coasters. Bad (cute) dog. My cat doesn’t even do that – except when there is an irresistible breeze in the dining room.
Was that Temple Bar you were enjoying cocktails at? (Instagram.) Love Temple Bar. Lucky. Their recreated Aviation is one of my signature cocktails at home.
Oddly enough I had been missing Olive. Sooo cute!!! My dog will be 6 next month & I’ve finally acknowledged that’s it’s unlikely he’ll ever get a sweater made by me. Lucky, Olive!
Thank you for the photo. It’s such a relief to know that my badly behaved (despite obedience classes) Tibetan Terrier is not alone. Friends who were dog-sitting have a story of coming down for ice water at night to find her asleep on their kitchen table, all four paws in the air. They checked to make sure she was breathing and then left her there. They are tolerant people.
A down-lined coat, lucky doggie! But I’m curious, how are you going to cut into that down jacket without unleashing feathers all over your house?
Never mind that dhe’s in the Hamptons for the summer! Bailey loves swimming. Altho I’m guessing Olive may not. Thinks it’s a spaniel compared to terrier thing.
Oh, Magpie, how I miss thee. I have a few skeins tucked away; I can barely think about using them. It’s like if they’re still in skein form, then Magpie still exists. Those precious skeins were left over from a cardigan I designed for myself a gazillion years ago. I got so many comments about it I ended up writing up the pattern and using Elements Affects Heirloom Romney for the new sweater. Great stuff, the Heirloom Romney, but oh, Magpie………………I should probably do something with those skeins other than wistfully fondle them.
Sooooooo bad! And sooooooo cute!
One of our schnauzer mix dogs likes to climb up onto a very large picnic table and sleep there…..
Margieinmaryland
It looks to me like Olive misses her human so she figured if she got on the table she would get to go home to get human! I don’t think that worked. If my little Shih Tzu Nikki needs a dog coat I am knitting one just like this one!
Holy mackerel, you said “much-missed terrier” and I had a gut-dropping O NO OLIVE moment.
Whew!
WHEW!
Whew.
My thought too–oh, no, when did I miss a note about Olive? Whew, she’s only in no-rules vacation mode. We should all have a dose of that now and then.
So, another day of dreadful news. Ann asked last week what we did to bring us solace. My answer is: read this blog. I used to read the news at bedtime. Forget it. Now I check in here and know that I will end the day with creativity, talent, resourcefulness, the unexpected link to a video or pattern or product, more often than not a good chuckle, and a nice online community.
Lorraine, you and I must be the Modern Daily Knitting Melodrama Team.
Our signature move is repairing to the fainting couch. 🙂
I was digging through some DEEP stash last night, and ran across a sweater quantity of Magpie in a dark olive color. (Sometimes being a little hoard-ish about your yarn is a good thing. . .) There are also a couple bags of Wool Cotton and Denim stashed around here, too.
I hope Olive enjoys her vaca—I agree with the person who said that she probably climbed up on the table searching for you. Please re-post a couple of her puppy pictures—those ears still kill me.
My poodle jumps on the dining table when she is mad at me. She once shredded fresh flowers when she was really peeved. Olive may be trying to send you a message.
She’ll forgive you, though, when she sees her fancy new coat. I agree–a tweed bone would be just the thing!
In a crazy reversal of savvy New Yorkers like Olive, we left our central AC in the burbs to spend some time in our musician daughter’s upper east side apartment ( while she plays music festivals in Napa and Tahoe).
But here’s my Magpie story: years ago ( mid nineties ) same daughter was searching for the perfect wrap-y long cardigan, and then realized she should ask Mom to make one, so of course, I did. It’s still here, in her place, used and loved. Don’t have my notes here, but it was a Rowan pattern. The yarn practically knits itself! I made a lovely sweater for a two year old great niece, too.
A sadder Magpie tale is of the raglan pullover ( that’s jumper to Rowan fans) with the swoopy cord-like attachments knit on the bottom. At hip level, duh! Just where I’m doing very well by myself, thank you. That one went to Rummage, for a very happy rummager to find.
Brought only my ZickZack and a linen version of Inner Peace with me. Thank goodness there’s a super LYS on 2nd Ave and 92!
You had me worried when you said Olive was gone – I’ve been away a lot and may have missed some posts. Glad she’s getting some summer fun in! I’m sure she’ll love her new sweater!
It seems kind of mean making your little dog wear a wool coat in August. No wonder she wanted to get in front of the fan!
I humbly suggest polar fleece for the lining. Knitting stretches, so a stretchier fabric for the lining is way easier. Plus polar fleece washes well, dries fast, comes in a variety of kicky colors and prints, and is easy to sew.
My sweet boy has a few sweaters and coats. I’m sure he needs a new one. I’m waiting for a pattern to grab me. I really like the one that Franklin Habit made for Roz!