hi--it's me--beryl.

and this is my new coat.

Or maybe it’s a sweater?¹

I don’t know.

Well it once was a sweater. I do know that. And I know that the bias binding (that’s what she calls it), came from a pair of tattered (read just getting good), leggings²

But I was seriously dubious when Sarah started cutting both of them up.³ I mean— why?

Well okay, cutting off the sleeves and calling them leg warmers—that makes sense, especially now that she doesn’t have that pair of leggings. Humans, after all, are pathetically deficient in the leg-fur department and need all the layers that come their way.

But since Sarah has no back or chest hair either, you’d think she’d choose to use the rest of the thing-that-used-to-be-a sweater to keep her torso warm rather than foist the flowery thing off on me.

Naturally I pointed this out (I try to be honest). But she in turn pointed out to me that she’d just made herself a ginormous coat⁴—

—and finished yet another next-to-the-skin fur replacement garment (what we dogs call an undercoat)—

—which helped me understand that hair or no hair she has way more under-coat replacement things than I can count, and I’d be doing her a huge favor by taking one of them off her hands—as an overcoat—or whatever.⁵

I do not always excel in the ways I try to be helpful but I like to keep trying—

—and I think there’s a chance I might be able to rock this sartorial support gig.

In fact—to my surprise—I kinda like it. And certainly won’t complain about wearing it on test walks.

For though she apparently isn't going to do anything about the way the lace sits lopsidedly across my butt—⁶

—the new buttons and red collar extension are rather fetching.⁷

And if Sarah thinks she’s doing me a favor by futzing about making me clothing, well I’ll just keep pretending I’m doing her a favor by wearing what she produces.

For though I say I’m not a coat-or-sweater-wearing dog—

— I might have to change my mind.

1. I’m pretending I’m doing Sarah a favor by writing The Gusset today. She has a lot on her plate just now, and after yesterday’s Live YouTube thingy I decided she was too overstimulated to write anything coherent anyway. Certainly that’s as good a reason as any to get my paws on the keyboard.

2. Is not a found stick always better than a store-bought plastic facsimile?

3. Seriously fulled/felted the sweater by running it through a full hot/cold cycle in the washing machine. Designed and knit around the turn of the century (handspun Cormo with natural dyes), it was always loved but rarely worn— until now

4. The Coat That Didn’t Want to be Photographed

5. If I were a different kind of dog I would have chewed it to bits so she could send it straight to the compost pile. But alas, I’m not that bitch.

6. Drooping down too far on the right — the result of wanting to use as much of the knitted lace as possible without considering symmetry. Luckily, it doesn’t hinder my movement at all.

7. The belly band is extra long for coziness and because it seemed silly to cut off the finished edge. And since that bit of edge had buttonholes, there was no reason not to use them to supplement the velcro for security.