Ferret Sweater Tutorial

This was originally published in my Livejournal on July 14, 2008. I decided to create this blog to post mainly craft-related things, and opted to move the pattern link from some sites to here. I have left the original post containing the pattern on LJ and will possibly continue to crosspost any future patterns there as well, but I would prefer this journal be the one linked to. Thanks.

I've been asked a couple of times in different places how I made these. The instructions are more like a tutorial instead of a knit pattern, because these were made specifically to each ferret's measurements.

First, measure your ferret; here were my measurements for one of the ferrets:

2" in between the front legs, 9.5" around the midsection, 7" around the neck, and ~7" long for the sweater. A guesstimate was that the sweater would be ~2" from the neck to the armholes, and ~4" from the armholes to the bottom of the sweater.

Next, do a swatch with the yarn you want to use (again, I used cotton because it provides some warmth but still breathes so it won't cause the ferret to become too warm). Figure out your gauge from the swatch. My guage was 1 inch= 5 rows and 4 stitches in stockinette with US 9/5.5 mm needles and cotton yarn (I used Lion Brand cotton, Lily Sugar'n Cream, and Bernat Handicrafter Cotton for the 6 sweaters made so far).

Keep in mind the sweater will stretch a little, so make it slightly smaller than you think you need to (I learned this after making a couple of sweaters). Also make sure it's an adequate amount for your ribbing. So I cast on 36 stitches in the round (9"), ribbed for about 2 inches, then knit for ~3" (2" looked too short to me). I left the last 8 stitches on a holder (8 stitches = 2" for the space between the armholes), and knit the back of the sweater flat (knitting, turn and purl). I did that for 5 rows (I planned on 1" armholes) but they were huge on the two smaller ferrets, so I did 3 rows for them instead. Test it and see what works for your ferret. Then cut the yarn and knit the same amount of rows for the stitches on the holder. Join in the round again, and knit until the rib section (I knit for about an inch and ended up ribbing between 1-2").

I did different ribs so the owner would know which sweater belonged to whom (the largest had 1x1 rib, the middle one 2x2, and the smallest had 4x4). With her ferrets, either 2x2 or 4x4 seemed to fit better (though the largest likes clothing the most and didn't seem to mind the looser fit around the neck and waist).

I hope this helps for anyone wanting to make their own, and feel free to ask for any clarifications. :)

Content copyright © 2008 by J. Dalrymple. All rights reserved.
This content was written by J. Dalrymple. If you wish to use this content in any manner, you need written permission. This tutorial is released under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 License.