The Patchwork Scottie Dog is a terrific project for using up lots of small bits of leftover yarn. It’s based on a quilted fabric Scottie dog from the 1930s.

The construction is basically a box pillow, assembled from two patchwork faces and a solid color boxing band. These are knitted separately and then sewn together. Happily the equally-sized squares of the color blocks take the guesswork out of picking up stitches during the final assembly, making seaming fairly painless.

The two patchwork faces require 54 x 4 yds/3.5 m of worsted weight yarn, or longer lengths of lighter weight yarns held double or triple to create an equivalent weight. Six vertical color-block strips of varying lengths are knitted flat in stockinette and then sewn together using mattress stitch to make the outline of the dog. The boxing band is one long, solid-color strip knitted flat in garter stitch from about 120 yds/110 m of worsted weight yarn and then joined to the two faces using mattress stitch. The filling is either a foam cushion cut to size or polyfill. Finally, two large buttons are added for eyes.