Review on 🐶 Stylish Canine Fashion by Amber Perez

I am fortunate to have a service dog in my life and trust me she is a miracle. A bit of swagger and dapperness - he doesn't have a sweater - he has a closet. So when I saw a new book about dog drawings, I jumped to Revane and ordered it. Good book, interesting design, clear well-written templates with one SERIOUS major flaw. Each jersey pattern, 12 of them, have patterns written ONLY for the dog they were made for. Many of them are small, fussy dogs - and it's good if you have them. My boyfriend has a 12" neck, 21" chest and 17" length. He's a Mountain Fiest, which means he looks like a smaller version of a good Doberman. Well, I've been knitting for sooooo long - almost 50 years (Oh my god, am I really that old?!?! No.), and I'm pretty good at manipulating patterns and coaxing them into making them a different size, or body type, than they were originally written in. That Buch tells you straight out that these sweaters are a loose knit (oh yes? Aran worsted on #4 needles? Is that FREE to you?) and they need to stretch to fit larger and smaller dogs, they also punch little things like adding 2 stitches on each side of the piece for some designs to increase the size by a total of 3/4" right. AND HOW MANY stitches do I need to add to go from 9" to 21? A lot. The only saving grace is that once you are familiar with the concept of a pressure gauge, take the charts and insert the measurements you want, and then recompose the instructions. You basically have to rewrite the entire template. Tailored coats? They put a very small template in the book - they tell you to measure the length of the back - and then they go to your photocopy location and enlarge the template until it's long enough to fit your dog. I hope the rest of the proportions will be to scale. Don't get me wrong - these are really cute coats. I like them a lot and my McTaggart might like a few of these once I have time to sit down and rearrange them to suit him. I have reviewed the few books I have here on knitting dog clothes - they each have SIZES - eg - XS - S - M - L - XL - XXL to fit from Chichuhua to Great Dane. This is the only book I've seen that doesn't offer this. If you're the type that loves to knit lots of beautiful sweaters to donate to your local animal welfare organization or local rescue nursery, you'll love doing this. But if you want to make something special for a dog of a certain size - well - um - I hope you're either good at pattern matching or know someone who does. Damn shame. Some of them are REALLY high on the CUTE-o-meter. I wish someone at Revain would review the book and SAY it in the description. I would buy something else if I knew. I feel like a guy with coal in his stocking and socks - kind of a delusion. Signed, Maggie Pringlemire