Knitting Pretty

So on the 20th of June, which was a Saturday, I was all excited. I was all excited because I was getting ready to go out to the cinema and watch the new Harry Potter film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Now, anyone who's in the know about this film will have realised that I was off on the release date by an entire month. That's right, until I was looking up movie session times on the website for my local cinema, I thought that the release date was 15th June, not 15th July... I felt like such a mushroom bonce.

So, now we are only eleven days away from the release, and I am really excited. I love the books, I think they are very well written and heaps and heaps of fun! In anticipation of the film, I thought it would be only be right to do a post here with a bunch of free HP knitting projects!

Okay so first off, one of the best free patterns for anything Hogwarts related is this wonderful set of fair isle purses which depict the mascots of the four Houses. The Gryffindor purse looks especially good, if you ask me. Next we have a group of book marks, or book scarves, actually, which also show the four house mascots... well sort off, for some reason Hufflepuff's book scarf has badger tracks, rather than a badger. Then there are four sock patterns - I personally don't knit socks, but I know a heck of a lot of knitters do - one for each of the houses. The Gryffindor pattern looks good, the Hufflepuff pattern looks great, Ravenclaw's is actually in the correct colours for the book rather than film, and Slytherin's works well too.

Now here are some items that aren't house specific, but rather are more tie-ins to the HP world. This is a fabulous felted bag, which happens to have some groovy quazi-latin saying on one side, and embroidery on the other. The embroidery is supposed to be personalised, so don't worry about the lettering on the front. Next is an illusion dishcloth. I have been meaning to do up a few illusion pieces to do an entry about them, but yeah, still working on those acorns. This particular piece is showing Hedwig, and as she is such a pretty bird, I thought I would include it here. Plus, out of all the projects I have listed, this would be one of the easiest and quickest, and those sorts of projects are always appealing to this lazy knitter. On the other end of the lazy spectrum, we now move onto a wonderful felting project - for those who haven't tried their hand at felting before, you have to knit your item a heck of a lot bigger, no really,  huge in comparison to the size you want it in the end - of a beautiful witches hat. I have to say, the original is so inspiring, I love the vine motif on the hat. This is one of those projects I will someday put a lot of heart and soul into making, because I have always loved this pattern. The last little dainty for today has to be one of the most iconic images from the series, a Golden Snitch.

Well I hope that some of you are inspired to go and knit some of those awesome patterns up, because they are really all quite fun. Except the socks, but that's just my personal preference. Until next time, keep the magic flowing!

I have been knitting for a few years now, I would say four or five, and I think I will always knit. During this time, though, I haven't really bought all that much yarn, especially not yarn to just put away, or really high quality yarns. My current stash - a knitting term used in reference to the yarn we have, that isn't for a particular project - is largely thanks to a kind woman I used to work with, who donated parts of her stash she no longer wanted. I like to buy natural fibres, so I mostly find cheap yarns that are pretty and made largely of wool. This has been working pretty well, though I do buy some acrylic as well, here or there, but I personally much prefer wool. Today I thought I would talk about those lovely yarns that are so pretty, and expensive, that they inspire a certain amount of drool.

Now, I am going to start off with yarn that I have always wanted, yarn that as soon as I saw, I knew someday I had to knit something with it! Karabella Fur,  which is made from rabbit hair, and looks superbly fluffy and soft. Unfortunately, this yarn retails for about £52 for about 9 meters. I am not kidding, it really is that expensive.

Okay so another yarn type I have always wanted to knit with, is a really lovely, bulky, almost roving like 1ply wool. Roving is when a fibre has been prepared to be spun, so combed, maybe dyed, and in a long and narrow bundle. Like this! I love yarns that have that soft, fibrous look of roving. This is the sort of yarn I am referring to, and you can do some really great work with it. I would love a heap of really soft, super bulky, 1ply, wool yarn to make this vest with on my speed sticks.

Then there is the other side to that equation, I would love to work with amazingly beautiful silk yarn, and with that amazingly beautiful silk, I would have to knit a fabulous shawl. Something so very pretty, that I would love forever. So of course that shawl would have to have a leaf or vine motif, so here is the shawl I will someday knit up with that wonderful silk yarn. The Woodland Shawl by The Thrifty Knitter.

On and off for the past couple of days I have been knitting little acorns. I think they are adorable, and I am still playing with the pattern to find the exact right way for me. The original acorn on Pea Soup's blog  looked fantastic, but my yarn stash is a little limited so I have to alter the pattern just a little bit here and there to get the right effect.

I have also really been wanting to try out the Bunny Nuggets that can be found over on Mochimochi Blog, but I have been telling myself I have to get more of the acorns done before I can move onto something else. Plus I am still a little confused about the magic cast on, and I know Knitting Help can help me... because it says it in their title! But seriously, there is a video on there about it, but for some reason the other day when I went to play it there was no sound, so I have just been too lazy to go back since. I will get to it, though, right after my next few acorns...

Anyway, this has gotten me rather excited to try my hand at knitted toys. But what to knit? I mean, I don't want some honking toy hanging about, because I won't actually play with it, so it has to be small and unobtrusive so it can sit on my desk somewhere. Or I can place it in funny locales around the house... Last Easter my fiance and I got little egg baskets from his mother, she had gone to the trouble to put cute little yellow fuzzy chicks on them, so I got into the habit of putting them in different places in the house, and seeing when my fiance noticed them. I used Blu-tack to stick them on the walls, under arch-ways, on top of the television, pretty much anywhere I thought they would eventually be noticed and laughed at.

I am going to link to a few cute toy patterns, ones that I can either see myself making, or think are odd and cool enough to be here. First off, back to Mochimochi's blog for some Grass, because it is just so cute. I want to knit a few of these up and just place them around the edges of my desk. I have always thought this little storm cloud is cute, and think he could be part of a great mobile for a baby's room. A white version without the lightning, and then this one, and two other variants, like a grey one, and a white one with snowflakes. This little milk and cookie pattern is cute, if completely useless. I don't know, I think it would just be nice to have on one's desk. Continuing with food, I think knitted onigiri (Japanese rice-ball) would be nice to have around. You could even put a rock in it and use it as a paper weight. Lastly, I want to link to this pattern just because I have mentioned the book that inspired it here before, The Stinky Cheese Man.

So those are the toy patterns that appeal to me today. But as I said, many more acorns to go, and a horde of Bunny Nuggets too!