Knit a Hanukkah Sweater for Your Dog

Well this might be the cutest Hanukkah craft I’ve ever seen. The O Hanukkah sweater from My Savannah Cottage is super cute and full of holiday symbols like menorahs, dreidels and stars of David.

It’s worked with both stranded colorwork and intarisa, and is great for an experienced knitter who likes a lot of details in their projects (or anyone up for a challenge!).

The project uses five colors of worsted weight yarn and comes in three sizes for different sized dogs.

You can grab the pattern on Etsy for $6.

[Photo: My Savannah Cottage via Etsy.]

Looking for more Hanukkah patterns to knit? Check these out on Etsy

Looking for more things to hand-make and DIY for your dog? Check out some of our favorite things to make for dogs. Owning a dog can be very expensive and not only does making your own dog beds, coats and toys seem like fun, it is also a great way to save money on pet supplies too. One of our puppy’s favorite homemade dog toy is a soda bottle ½ filled with rice. It is noisy, it flips and spins and has a spout for him to grab.

Looking for more sewing patterns for your fur baby doggies? Check out these sewing patterns over on Etsy.

No Sew Easy Dog Bed – Quick and easy to make, you will want this soft and fluffy dog bed for every room, if you are looking for more DIY dog beds check out these articles for making your own dog beds.

DIY Dog Shampoo for sensitive skin – Even doggies have allergies and this recipe is for dogs with sensitive skin.

Recycled TShirt – Dogs Tugga Toy This project was featured in Moderndog magazine and was so fun to make, the best part was ripping up all the old t-shirts. Such a great way to recycle.

Recycled Dog Collar – Pickup old shirts from thrift stores and make fun collars in different colors and sizes. Make sure to measure your dog’s neck before heading out so you know what size to shirt to buy.

Check out this article on 15 dog toys you can make at home.

No Sew Dog Wrap – Made from old human track pants, very affordable to make.

Peppermint Dog Soap – Stinky dogs are gone, peppermint is soothing and antibacterial too.

Dry Pet Shampoo – Sometimes they haven’t even dried from their bath before they are dirty again, this shampoo helps to brush out the grime.

Dog Cakes – Perfect for dog parties and doggie friend playdates

Dog Biscuits– 16 yummy dog treats you can make yourself at home in the kitchen.

Looking for pet supplies, toys, food, or gift ideas? Check these out.

It’s one thing to follow a knitting pattern and get the fit that the designer wanted for that particular project. But it’s quite another thing to decide how you want your sweater to fit and making a project work for you.

Designer Kim McBrien Evans aims to help knitters understand why sweater patterns don’t always work for them the way they expect and what to do about it in her book The Knitter’s Sweater Fitting Bible.

She describes the book as containing “everything I’ve learned about sweaters, bodies, and the art of fit.” It covers how to plan for a good fit through things like taking measurements and choosing the correct size to knit, understanding ease, reading schematics and fixing fit issues.

Sweater style templates give knitters a place to start knitting better sweaters with made to measure patterns that work with any body, any yarn and any gauge. The book is designed to give knitters confidence to go their own way whether they’re modifying existing patterns, using one of the templates or designing their own custom sweater.

McBrien Evans argues that the best way to make a sweater that will fit well and stand up to lots of wearing is to work from the top down flat in pieces that are seamed when the knitting is done (the exception being circular yoke sweaters, which are worked in the round from the top down). She offers advice for making seaming easier like using selvedges and short rows.

She goes into a lot of detail on how and where to measure yourself and how to understand schematics in knitting patterns to help you choose the correct size for you and know where to adjust. The fixing fit chapter covers how to fit a sweater to your body from the shoulders down, with tips for things like balancing uneven shoulder height, accommodating a larger bust, using different shaping on the front and back of a sweater for better fit, fixing neckline depth and fixing sleeve and body lengths.

The book includes photos and drawings of people of different sizes and with physical differences such as a smaller limb or having a mastectomy on one side, which is nice and helps you see how these concepts work on different bodies.

The sweater templates offer options like a straight body, A-line and waist shaping body; set in sleeve caps and armholes, straight raglans and modular compound raglans, drop shoulders and circular yoke shaping; crew, scoop and V-neck options; a variety of sleeve templates, neckline finishes, and button hole options for cardigans.

It’s easy for all this to feel overwhelming if you’re trying to read the book cover to cover, but it’s good to know that all of those options are there if you need them. There are also nine design profile sweaters that show you how all the pieces go together that you can knit through to help you understand some of the concepts.

A fit kit in the back walks you through the math so you’ll feel comfortable with things like determining your rate of shaping, adding darts, shaping diagonals and calculating the lengths of curved edges, among other things.

The good news is you’re not going to need all of these tools for every project. The better news is that now you know these are things you can do to make your sweaters fit better, and you’ll have McBrien Evans as your able guide every step of the way.

While this might not be a book you want to spring on a new sweater knitter, it’s a guide that everyone who enjoys knitting garments should have on hand to reference ways to make sweaters they want to knit — from written patterns or designing for themselves — that much better.

About the book: 192 pages, hardcover, 9 patterns. Published 2026 by David & Charles. Suggested retail price $29.99.

Have you read?