Doggie Sweater

Zooey is such an itty bitty pooch, that she gets chilly if our thermostat drops below 71 degrees.  Earlier this winter I made her a girly dog shirt from an old top of mine that I had stained (which only happens to 80-90% of my clothes).  This shirt is fancy - with scalloped accent fabrics!

I wanted to make her something a little warmer (now that winter is almost over? genius...) so I dug through my scrap box and found...

Perfect! A sweater that I had cut up for Christmas decorations. Half of the bottom is missing, but the other half is juuuuuust the right size for my micro-pup.  I used my previous dog shirt as a template, but here's how I measured for a custom fit:

my zooey doodle.  see the resemblance??

I really just used my measurements as a rough guideline for cutting my fabric.  I also made sure to allow an extra 1/2 inch for seams.  Here is the shape that I cut (you can see my measurement drawing too!). After hemming the neckline, the only seam I had to sew was the "tummy" seam because the "back" seam was cut along a fold in the sweater.  Notice how I made sure the bottom edge of the shirt would not need to be hemmed by using the original ribbed bottom of the sweater. 

"neck" hemline.

still a little out of sorts after the arrival of sisterpup, leia.

 I'm not going to tell you how much Zooey loved her new doggie sweater.  Because she hates wearing anything other than a collar.  But she does look lovely wearing it! And if we get another late March snowstorm, she'll be toasty warm! 

If I had chosen to add any embellishment to this sweater, I would have done so before sewing the tummy seam (to make my life a little easier).