The Adventures of Nano the Geodog

Say hello to Nano, a tiny project that turned into an elaborate labor of love.

My dad loves to geocache and logging trackables is a big part of his geocaching ~~hobby~~ obsession. Alas, one of his favorite trackables, Freddie Frigid, made a daring escape across the border while visiting the Peace Arch in 2014. While Freddie can never be replaced, I thought Dad could use a new geocaching companion. I also needed to do something special for his milestone birthday and thus a plan was hatched.

Part I: Making the Dog

I searched Ravelry for softie patterns and found this adorable toy dog designed by Rian Anderson. Doesn’t he look like Gromit?

To make the dog small enough to use as a trackable, I used a light-weight yarn (CoBaSi, held double) and small DPN’s (US 2.5 and 1.5). Very pleased with the results but the process was seriously finicky!

CoBaSi makes a lovely knitted fabric but tends to be rather splitty during the knitting process. I also couldn’t figure out how to keep the doubled-up strands from twisting so had to untwist them frequently to keep the stitches flat and smooth. Plus I had to make a lot of small pieces, sew them partway, stuff them just right, sew them together some more…well you get the picture!

"Where are my ears?" — “Where are my ears?”

Click here for more project details on Ravelry

Part II: Making the Dog Trackable

Fortunately, this was pretty easy with a Log My Dog tag. Each tag has a unique code so that it can be tracked online at geocaching.com. Then the tag had to be attached to the dog so I bought a teensy weensy dog collar and shortened it to fit around the dog’s neck.

Part III: Naming the Dog

Of course, the dog needed a name. “Nano” was perfect because the dog was so small and geocachers often use nano-sized containers for hard-to-find geocaches. I also made him a dog tag with his name and phone number on it just in case he got lost like Freddie Frigid (no pressure, Dad!).

Part IV: Making Dad Work For His Present

Naturally I had to make Dad jump through a few hoops before he could become Nano’s owner. I created a word puzzle that Dad had to solve to get the coordinates of Nano’s hiding spot in the back yard. Took a while (and some heavy hints) but he eventually figured it out!