And Now For a Dog Sweater

People will stare. Make it worth their while. —Harry Winston

Well, another week has passed, and here is all the progress on my current sweater project I have to show for it. It was a rather abysmal week for productivity:

There are a few reasons for this lack of progress. It doesn't help that I am knitting with small needles and with sock weight yarn. It also doesn't help that I keep messing up and having to rip back... and then having to put back all 315 stitches back on the needles. These are not ingredients for quick knitting progress.

But I've also had a few other things on the go. I had grand plans to make another batch of handpainted Christmas cards this year and so I went out and got a back of 50 watercolour cards... and then let them sit on the dining table for a month. The hubby finally cleared his throat and asked if I would actually be making these cards or if he should go out and buy a box, which I took it as a sign to get off my butt and paint a few cards. I picked a simple design, but it still took a bit of time to let each layer dry. In the end, I had a batch that he could send out to his friends and family. I might make more, but at least I haven't let his card recipients down:

It was also a very busy and chaotic week at work this week. By Thursday evening, I was pretty tired and grumpy, and I kept trying to work on my sweater project but it just wasn't happening... so I decided it was time to make Seymour a new sweater:

I love worsted weight yarn and big needles. It flew off the needles relatively quickly. I am very happy with the result, as I am not that experienced with stranded colourwork and I have never knit a shawl collar on a dog sweater before. I actually sat and looked through many photos of shawl collars before I knocked this thing together:

But of course, all you really want to see is what it looks like on the model:

I'd made him try it on multiple times throughout the weekend, so he was pretty fed up of wearing it, as shown by the expression on his face. It's still stinkin' cute all around:

You can't see it, but it also has a hole in the back to allow for his harness loops to go through. We wouldn't want to deprive the neighbourhood of the sight of this little guy showing off his winter wear. I hope this work week is better because if I knit dog sweaters to work through my stress, I'm not sure Seymour is going to stand for much more of it.

Well, that's it for the update, I guess. I'm going to go settle myself down and drink some tea and work on my own sweater for a while. I hope your week goes well!