OWL Mittens

I love finishing handknits right in time for a cold snap. This winter's just-in-time knits are my OWL mittens, which I started at the end of August. The project was slow going because the pattern was so detailed but things did speed up a bit once I learned an easier way to manage long color repeats in fair isle.

So now I have some decidedly nerdy mittens. At least the low color contrast means that they don't scream their nerdiness for everyone to see. It makes me quite happy to know that I'm wearing Harry Potter mittens that others won't recognize.

For all that I like these mittens, it's sometimes hard to see the words clearly on the palms if the light isn't right. Part of me likes this subtlety but another part of me is annoyed that I did all of that work and the pattern isn't coming through clearly. If I had to do it all over again, I would up the contrast a bit to make the words sharper. At least the back of the hands look great in all lighting.

All in all, this was a fun project and I'm looking forward to seeing how these mittens wear now that it's cold.

Owl Post

I’m a person with predictable tastes. If you know me, you know I love tea, Harry Potter, knitting Ysolda patterns, and wearing dresses. I try not to splurge on these things too much, but sometimes something comes along that I can’t resist. Like the new "Unofficial Harry Potter Knits" magazine from Interweave.

This magazine contains over 30 Harry-Potter inspired patterns, ranging from sweaters and shawls to socks and mitts. Some of the patterns are overtly Potter, like the O.W.L. mittens and modern house scarves, but most are just beautiful patterns inspired by the books. I especially enjoyed seeing knits from the books, like Hagrid's giant yellow sweater and S.P.E.W. caps, imagined in real life.

The patterns themselves are great but what really makes them stand out is the styling. The models representing Luna, Hagrid, etc. really look like the characters and the scenery is straight out of the books. Taken together, it really makes me wish I had gotten my Hogwarts letter. Alas, another year has gone by and the Hogwarts Express left without me.

I like a lot of patterns in this magazine, but I absolutely adore the O.W.L. mittens and knew at first glance that I had to knit them. They have little owls on the back of the hand but what absolutely gets me are the spells written on the palms. I'm making my pair in two close shades of gray (the actual contrast is a bit better than in the photos) so I can have the secret pleasure of wearing these mittens while still appearing to be a muggle.

If you are a Harry Potter fan and a knitter, I think you'll like this magazine. It won't give you patterns for knits seen in the movies (for that I recommend Charmed Knits), but there are a lot of beautiful wearable garments with echos of Potter in them. I think that's all the better, as I have enough overt Harry Potter stuff as it is.

Baby Play-Book

A few of my knitting friends recently got together to make a baby gift for a mutual friend who is expecting. Our first thought was to make a blanket, as there were 6 of us contributing, but dealing with gauge issues just to give mom another baby blanket seemed like more of a hassle than a blanket was worth. In the end, we settled on creating a soft play-book.

The play book turned out to be a great idea. Everyone made a roughly 8-inch square out of machine-washable yarn of any color using any stitch pattern. The 'pages' were then sewn to a garter stitch 'binding' (with one ridge of garter binding per page) to create the book. And because my friend M could not resist, she added safety eyes and ties to make it look like the 'Monster Book of Monsters' from Harry Potter.

The best part of this project was that the contributed squares were so different. My friend J added pockets to her square and filled them with sea creatures (above). Another friend did an intarsia square. My square was a boring knit-purl design that turned out too big. But in the end, the jumble of colors, sizes, and designs just made this book a better toy.

The mom-to-be loved it. While the baby won't be playing with this book for a little while, I expect that it will amuse someone in the meantime; you're never to old to enjoy a non-lethal copy of 'The Monster Book of Monsters'.

The End of an Era

It's been an awesome Harry Potter week for me, mostly because the final Potter movie was released and I thought it was wonderful. Part of my joy in seeing this movie came from dressing up as a Ravenclaw student and having a special Ravenclaw drink at the theater (blueberry italian soda). My first viewing experience was so good that I'm thinking about seeing the movie in the theater again, minus the costume this time.

The other cool Potter thing that made my week was this set of awesome comic recaps. I love them so hard. Because the illustrator can't sell them due to copyright issues, she is offering the images as free downloads with a request for donations. I happily sent her some money and proceeded to make copies of all 8 images to hang on my wall. I'm not sure what my husband's reaction to this plan will be.

It's hard for me to feel sad that the Potter era is over, mostly because I'm still active in the Knit/Crochet House Cup on Ravelry and am looking forward to the launch of Pottermore later this year. Still, it will be interesting to see how much longer Pottermania lasts now that it is not consistently being fueled by new books and movies.

Potter Party Pals: The Event

I had some friends over this weekend for my Harry Potter party, which turned out to be a lot of fun. We did trivia, enjoyed some Potter-themed food, and watched Harry Potter 7 part 1. Because I shared my initial party preparations and my awesome invitations in a previous post, I'm now sharing all of the final party details in case you also want to host a Potter party before the release of the final movie.

My friends got a big kick out of the entrance to platform 9 3/4, aka my kitchen. (This photo is also a reminder to 'measure twice, cut once.') I made the curtain out of some spare red fabric and painted on the brick pattern with white fabric paint. I made blue signs to point the way toward platforms 9 and 10 using construction paper and a sharpie. It took a little time to put everything together, but it was inexpensive and totally worth the effort when I saw people's faces light up with recognition.

I served a bunch of Potter-themed candy at the party including: Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans (Jelly Belly beans), sherbet lemons (lemon drops), and licorice wands (Twizzlers). I found the apothecary jars at Anchor Hocking and labeled everything with little orange tags. Also notice in the background that I used the Potter books as simple and inexpensive decorations around the house.

I invited everyone to come in costume, should they like. I personally threw together a simple Ravenclaw student costume using items from my wardrobe and a tie belonging to my husband. The hat can be seen in all its needle-felted glory in this post.

Most of my planning efforts went into preparation and purchasing of food. I made chocolate frogs on a stick using 2/3 semi-sweet and 1/3 dark chocolate and supplies from Bake It Pretty. I also whipped up some 'cauldron cakes', which were really molasses and ginger cupcakes (recipe from this book) with vanilla icing. I topped the cakes off with spider and black cat picks, again from Bake It Pretty.

And if the sugar overload wasn't enough from the food, I served butterbeer. My version involved cream soda with a shot of butterscotch schnapps (from a bottle labeled 'Felix Felicis'), which was just as delicious and buttery as it sounds. Also in this photo: my Hogwarts bunting (described in a previous post) and the 'Lumos' and 'Nox' labels on the light switch.

Overall, it was a really enjoyable event to plan as well as to host. I could see an event like this working well for children and not just my 20-something friends. In any case, it's made me more excited to see the final movie when it comes out next month. I can't wait!

Potter Party Pals

I love themed parties. I loved them as a child and I still think they're wonderful as an adult. I love them so much, in fact, that I no longer feel the need to confine them to birthdays nor confine my imagination when given a theme. Especially when said theme is Harry Potter.

This party hasn't happened yet, but I'm already making preparations. The general idea is to have a few friends over to watch Deathly Hallows part 1 in anticipation of the release of the final Harry Potter movie. In addition to movie watching, there will be a little decor, a few themed snacks, and maybe even some trivia.

One of my favorite items that I've prepared so far is this little Hogwarts House bunting. The flags and simplified Hogwarts crest, which is held together with spray adhesive, are made from felt and I hand-stitched each of the flags onto a grosgrain ribbon. I just adore how it turned out!

A few other items on tap for the party include these adorable Owl Post notes from Celestefrittata on Etsy, which I will be using as invitations, and homemade caldron cakes made with supplies from Bake It Pretty. I really need to keep hold of my senses or I will really go overboard on the party supplies.

I have more exciting plans for this party, but that is for a future post!

Planning

I just concluded my 8th 'term' participating in the Harry Potter Knit/Crochet House Cup on Ravelry by celebrating a win for my house, Ravenclaw. As much as I'm looking forward to starting the next term in May (you can sign-up now for the coming term), I always enjoy the month off between House Cup terms because it gives me a chance to recharge my creative energy.

Part of the reason that I like this off-month is that I can dabble in random crafts. These pursuits don't have to be limited to knitting, crochet, or spinning and I'm not under a timeline for finishing. In fact, just the other night I whipped up this little Gryffindor prefect badge for something fun to do. I hope to do several other random projects like this during April.

The other reason I like the off month is that it gives me time to plan my next big project, or OWL (Ordinary Wizarding Level exam). While most of the projects for the House Cup must be done in under a month, OWLs are big 3-month projects. Having the structure and timeline of the House Cup really helps me finish knitting sweaters, spinning pounds of fiber, and in general tackling big projects that I would otherwise probably not complete.

For this term's OWL, I'm planning to make a bunch of magical creatures including: a knarl (pattern: Smith), a pair of imps (pattern: Daphne and Delilah), a de-horned erumpent (pattern: Flo), and a flutterby (pattern: Butterfly Apron). Best of all, I should have enough yarn in my stash to knit everything. You know, sometimes the best part of the whole knitting process is planning everything out!

Enchanting Skeins

As promised last week, I'm showing off the results of my nerdy little spinning project. I therefore present the Hogwarts House founders: Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and Slytherin.


It's funny that each of these skeins has some characteristic, besides the color, that correlates it to its House founder. For example, the Gryffindor skein has a lot of character, the Ravenclaw skein taught me a new plying technique, the Hufflepuff skein seems the most homespun to me, and the Slytherin skein can best be described as sleek.


The sleekness of the Slytherin skein comes from it's 50% silk content. This was my first time spinning with a silk blend and I was amazed by how easily it drafted. Too easily in my opinion. I might go for an 80/20 wool/silk blend next time, but there is no denying that the 50/50 blend is wonderful to bury your face in. Not that I would ever do such a thing.


The skeins are each unique and special, but I think that Gryffindor is my favorite. I loved spinning the batts from Hobbledehoy and I adore the final yarn. I couldn't help but order two more batt sets from this seller (one in Willow and the other in Italian Soda). I think my next little spinning project will be to learn core spinning on at least one of these batts. I'll keep you posted on how that goes!

My Nerdy Spinning Project

I showed you two lovely blue/brown skeins of handspun a few weeks ago, but failed to tell you that they are actually part of a larger spinning project that I am currently working on. Let me take a moment now to fill you in on the entire project.


I have a total of four rovings that I am spinning and each roving represents a different Hogwarts house founder: (clockwise from the top left) Slytherin, Hufflepuff, Gryffindor, and Ravenclaw. Totally nerdy, I know, but a good excuse to get some spinning done and work with a variety of colors. The blue/brown yarn I showed off is obviously Ravenclaw and today I get to show off Gryffindor's yarn:


I am over the moon about this yarn, which I spun from a carded batt by Hobbledehoy. The silk noil makes the texture in these singles spectacular and crazy-fun to spin! I really need to exercise restraint and not buy more batts until I spin some of the roving I already own. Admittedly, this gives me even more motivation to get spinning!


Since I spun Ravenclaw as a Navajo-ply and Gryffindor as singles, I think that Slytherin needs to be a plain old two-ply. I still have no idea about Hufflepuff's roving. Maybe I'll throw a curveball and try out core spinning or coils. I guess you'll just have to wait and see!

Neville Longbottom is a BAMF

I've been featuring a lot of non-knitting content on my blog recently as I work up my Vivian cardigan. The good news is that it is coming along nicely--I am almost done with the second sleeve and looking forward to working on the yoke. The bad news is that I again have no knitting to share with you today. But I do have a cute Harry Potter-related cross stitch to show off:


And by Neville, I of course mean Neville Longbottom (who is one of my favorite characters from the series). He goes from being a complete bumbler in the first book to a bad @$$ who kills big snakes and whoops your butt in Herbology by book 7. Apparently this transformation entitles him to his own Chuck Norris-type facts. I'm partial to the one I stitched, but there are some other really brilliant ones on Neville's fact list.

Picking the quote was half of the battle; the other challenge was to convert it to a stitch-able font. Luckily, I ran across this list of free fonts and was really taken with the StitchCross. After that, it was simply a matter of printing out my phrase in the StitchCross font and adjusting the math to ensure that everything was centered correctly. And doing the actual stitching, of course. This quote now lives on my craft desk, where it makes me smile and aspire to be as bad @$$ as Neville some day.

Hogwarts House Cup

Hello. My name is Kristin and I am a member of the Harry Potter Knit/Crochet House Cup on Ravelry.

There, I said it. The depth of my obsession with Harry Potter-related crafting has gone public. So what is the House Cup and why is it totally nerdy, you ask? Well, just like fictional Hogwarts students compete in class to win points for their houses, so does this group of real life crafters. The game consists of a 3-month term, with 6 class assignments offered every month. You have until the end of the month to knit/crochet/spin something that fits the assignment and post a photo in order to get points for your house. At the end of the term, the house with the most points wins. It's pretty simple and lots of fun!


For example, this month's Care of Magical Creatures assignment is to 'take care of a niffler'. Basically, you can create a niffler, something for it to wear, or something shiny that it found. I made this little golden heart (pattern here), as I assume that nifflers' love of shiny objects comes from the fact that their hearts are pure gold.


In addition to the monthly classes, 'students' can also take an OWL exam, which is a big project that is started and finished within the entire three-month term. My OWL this term is the Vivian cardigan, but means I had to frog my (small) progress and restart it at the beginning of the term in order to qualify. However, making the sweater for the House Cup gives me much more incentive to finish it before the cold weather arrives.


The current term of the House Cup started on September 1st. They probably won't 'sort' more students until the next term starts in January, but everyone is welcome to play along (though you won't earn any points until you are in a house). To learn more about the House Cup, check out the Ravelry group or the blog. Also, now that my Potter obsession is really out in the open, I'm adding a 'Harry Potter' tag to the blog so you can easily find all of my Potter-related posts.

Stitchy Witchy

This is a very exciting week for me, as the new Harry Potter movie opens on Wednesday. Regular readers of my blog are aware of my love of all things Potter and that I've been known to dabble in HP crafting from time to time. And here I am again, proving just how big of a nerd I am.


I'm not the type to attend the premiere in costume, but I can't let this moment pass without making something! So I whipped out my new needle felting tools and threw together this little witches hat. It is so cute that maybe I will have to make an exception to the no-costumes rule, just this one.

My First Swap

The internet is such a big place that you are bound to run into someone who shares your interests. For me, that small corner of the net is the Harry Potter House Cup on Ravelry, amongst other groups that I take part in there. And now, I can add the Reducio Swap group to that list!

The Reducio Swap is a Harry Potter-themed swap of very small items, including a mini-sock (hence 'reducio') and a Herbology item. It seemed like just the budget-friendly/friendly people kind of thing for me to try out as my very first swap. And I was not disappointed!


I received my little swap package from Ms. Madrigal Fairden, who also happens to live in Madison! Her mini-sock skills were impressive and I was delighted to receive some mistletoe for Herbology (she assured me it was nargle-free when it left her house). It was a wonderful little package and I'm glad to know another knitter in Madison.


And since this was a swap, I sent a little package to Ms. Minerva Pigwidgeon down in Florida. I had a lot of fun putting everything together and knitting up the mini-sock. But perhaps I am most proud of the Herbology item--a Guide to Rare Wand Trees. I cut felt in the shapes of Elder, Holly, Hawthorne, and Yew leaves, each representing a wand that Harry comes into 'possession' of during the series: Dumbledore's, his own, Draco's, and Voldemort's, respectively. Not only was the crafting fun, but it made me happy in a really geeky way.

So, the first swap was a very good experience and I'm thinking about signing up for the next round of Reducio!

Messenger Owl

Having already discussed my mild obsession with Harry Potter, it may not surprise you that I will be employing an owl to deliver all of my love notes today (Valentine's Day). Muggle post simply cannot be trusted with such an important task. Instead of dealing with the hassle of the live version, however, I decided to go with a little amigurumi owl based on the pattern found here. She may not be the largest owl, but she certainly makes up for it in cuteness.


The drawback is that she cannot be trained to carry letters like a normal owl, i.e. using mice. After a day or two, though, I discovered that whispering a few kind words into her ear will get you in her good graces. At this point she will open her beak, allowing you to put your letter inside.


Unfortunately, she has absolutely no sense of direction whatsoever, so I fear that I will be delivering all of my love notes by hand this year.

Ron Socks

Okay, maybe I should just admit this upfront: I am a big Harry Potter fan. I love everything from the books to the movies to the merchandise. You could take a piece of crap, slap a Harry Potter logo on it, and I would want to buy it. Harry Potter coffee mug? Sure! Harry Potter clock? Okay! Harry Potter sock yarn? Yes please!


Luckily, my lack of endless financial resources is balanced out by the fact that I'm slightly disappointed in the sock yarn's offered colorways. The only one that even resembles its character is 'Ron', and don't even get me started on the fact that there is no 'Hermoine' colorway. So I was able to execute a little self control before I broke down and finally bought the Ron colorway.


Despite the fact that these colors scream "RON!" to me, I'm still not mad about this yarn. The finished socks needed a little extra something to make them special or else they would just be mildly ugly. So, taking a page out of Mrs. Weasley's knitting book, I decided to embroider little R's on the cuffs.


The resulting socks are not mildly ugly, they're just pretty dorky. And I'm okay with that. It is one more pair of wool socks to get me through the Wisconsin Winter, and one more reminder that I have to wait an extra 8 months for the next Harry Potter movie. I hate you Warner Brothers...

A New Toy

As if knitting, spinning, and crocheting aren't enough, I have taken up a new hobby; weaving. My mother is the weaver in the family, with enough looms, yarn, and other equipment to fill up an entire room. But I'm getting started on a little smaller of a scale:


This is the little Arbor loom my Mom got me for my birthday this year. Due to its size and simplicity, it only does one thing well: it makes 4x4" squares. So far I've made a small handtowel and bag, but with a little imagination, you can do a lot with 4" squares.


And another reason I like this little loom, is that I can create fabric quickly. It takes just under 30 minutes to make a square, and in the 2 weeks since receiving this loom, I've made about 20 squares.



I don't think that it will replace knitting, but it's fun to have a new toy in the meantime!