It’s no secret that I’m a sucker for a greyhound, so when a call came out over Facebook asking for some help to knit snoods for all of the Sanctuary hounds at the rescue Wimbledon Greyhound Welfare in time to keep them snuggly warm for Christmas, I whopped my needles out.

The Sanctuary is a wonderful place that provides a home for life for hounds who have long term medical or behavioural issues that mean a forever home away from the safety of kennels might not be right for them, or at least not right, right now. My ‘allocated’ hounds were Baby and Beryl, and the brief: a little something in black and white to go with their swanky new zebra coats (made by the talented Phylly of Greycoats, who also made the wedding coats for my two houndies back in 2013).

I was delighted to discover I already had a stash of both black and white yarn….and both were sparkly!!! Whilst there was no set pattern for the snoods, all of the snood makers followed some guidelines. Snoods are 56 stitches with 2-3 inches of ribbing at either end on 5mm needles using DK yarn. They’re 10 – 11 inches in length in total, and anything goes for the middle bit.

I’m currently about 75% of the way through knitting the James C. Brett JB100 sweater dress and the sleeves are made up using a KKKKKP pattern, so I decided to use the same for the body of my snood and mix up the colours for a stripey effect.

The resulting snoods were delivered to the kennels in the nick of time on 23rd December, and as it turns out, not only do they match their coats, but they also match the hat and scarf set of one of their devoted carers, Carol. Score!

Other hounds who’ve benefitted from the generosity of a small tribe of avid pre-Christmas knitters include Rooster, Scooby and Tom.

I’m sure you’ll agree they all look rather spiffing.