Is it the Year of the Emotional Support Dog?

It feels like for several years now the knitting community has been in the throws of its emotional support chicken era. As of this writing the original pattern for the emotional support chicken is the subject of nearly 14,000 projects on Ravelry, which is not even to mention all the people (myself included!) who knit it without sharing on Ravelry about it.

The pattern came out in 2023 and still gets hundreds of visits a day on Ravelry. It’s now available in five languages, so people all over the world can knit their own chickens.

And why not? We need all the emotional support we can get in these trying times (and that’s describing the times incredibly lightly).

But maybe it’s time to retire the emotional support chicken, or at least expand our repertoire of knit comfort animals.

If you’re in the market for a different kind of emotional support knitting project, Lion Brand would like to suggest a dog.

A Dachshund, to be precise.

The Comforting Dachshund knitting patterns uses two colors of DK weight yarn to make a doggie that’s about 13 inches/33 cm long and 5 inches/12.7 cm tall. You could of course use the same pattern for worsted weight yarn and make a bigger dog if that’s a thing you might like.

Because as Dachshund is pretty sausagey in shape, this is a relatively easy knitting pattern with a skill level rating of easy. The face has some shaping but most of the body is just a straight tube, with the ears, tail and legs knit separately.

In fact, all of the pieces are knit separately, including the head and the body, so there are nine pieces in all. They are all worked flat, seamed, stuffed and sewn together. Safety eyes were used in the sample project but you could also embroider eyes if you wanted to make this for a baby.

The Dachshund pattern is available for free from Lion Brand, or you can buy the materials (excluding the eyes) direct from them.

[Photo: Lion Brand]

I love the look of mesh tops for summer, but I don’t know that I would ever actually wear one that’s full of giant holes, even though I admit they look cool (in both senses of the word) on other people.

What I would wear, though, is something that’s still lacy but maybe a little bit more subdued, like this chevron lace knit top from Yarnspirations.

This easy to knit T-shirt style top is worked flat in two pieces from the bottom up, using and easy lace pattern that’s a repeat of 10 stitches and four rows (though the wrong side rows are just purled, so there’s only two rows you need to learn the pattern on).

It has little cap sleeves that are worked as part of the top by casting on stitches where you need them.

If you’re new to lace knitting this is a good one to try because the pattern includes both written and charted instructions, and the only skills you need are yarn over, knit two together, slip slip knit and slip 1 knit 2 together pass the slipped stitch over (which makes a centered decrease).

There are four size options available (which they claim is enough to cover XS to 5XL), with finished chest measurements ranging from 38.5 inches (that’s 98 cm) to 59 inches, or 150 cm. The amount of ease would vary widely depending on your size and the size garment you choose. For example the largest size is said to fit a chest measurement from 5258 inches/132-147.4 cm, which gives you a range of ease from 1-7 inches, or 2.5 to 17.78 cm, depending on your size. Just something to be aware of when you think about how you want it to fit.

The project calls for Red Heart Cotton Breeze yarn, which isn’t a yarn I’ve tried yet, but it’s a DK weight acrylic and cotton blend, which should make a lightweight top that’s great for summer.

Grab the free pattern from Yarnspirations.

[Photo: Yarnspirations]

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