Lap Dog Coat (Or Tormenting the Cat)

I knew I was forgetting something on my craft to-do list.  Fortunately, it was because it was almost finished!

This is Jazzy.  We don’t have a dog (yet, according to the kids.)  Jazzy belongs to a relative of mine and the kids have only met her a few times.  But, they love her.  Little A is especially fond of her, which is wonderful, because he used to be scared of even the smallest dogs.

The kids wanted me to make a Christmas present for Jazzy.  She is only 11 lbs and doesn’t have very thick fur, so we decided to make something warm.  I settled on a granny square dog coat with colorful flowers.  I chose navy as the background because it goes with everything and provide a nice contrast to Jazzy’s white coat and to the snow, if there is any.  Little A loved bringing me a new color for the flower each time I started a square.

Constructing the blanket was easy enough.  The challenge was getting the size right.  I didn’t want to just eyeball it, so I conscripted the cat.  He’s bigger than Jazzy (17 lbs!) but close enough to hopefully get it right.  And, surprisingly, he didn’t seem to mind wearing the coat.  Our smaller cat wanted nothing to do with it.

The finished coat is definitely too small for him, and he hated the belly strap.  I think the size is probably right.  I ended up adding a fleece lining to make it warmer and so Jazzy’s white fur won’t show through the holes in the pattern.  At the last minute I remembered there had to be a hole for the harness leash.  Thank goodness there was a hole in the crochet pattern at the right spot!

I used a flower square I found online and looked at a few dog coat patterns to get an idea of the construction.  It was pretty straight forward.  I used Red Heart Super Saver yarn and a G hook.