A hat I would otherwise never make.

For Defense Against the Dark Arts, we had Option 2: Using Polyjuice Potion - To gain a better understanding of the strain the impersonator must be under, disguise yourself as someone else by crafting something that you never normally would.

My mother thought it would be cute to make "one of those little pumpkin hats" for my niece.

My niece IN MIAMI. This child does not, nor will she likely EVER, need a hat. (Her mom likes heat the way I like cold. The fact we were both ice skaters through high school probably explains why she went to law school in Florida and stayed there!)

There is no way, under any circumstances, that I would normally make a cute little HAT for this child. Toys, yes. One sweater, as light as I could make it. One blanket. Everything else will be toys... but then this class prompt came up.

So, I give you the hat for my niece, which definitely comes under the category of Something I Would Not Normally Craft Under Any Circumstances.


Mom will be sending it down to her, I will be disavowing all knowledge of same. I know better than to knit warm, toasty hats for family in Miami!!

January Wrap-Up

In the category of "things that should have posted earlier in the week, but didn't", I have a pretty collage of alll the things I made for the HPKCHC in January, 2011.






There is also one Olivia's Butterfly hat that I made for myself. I'm still debating whether or not to repurpose the yarn to some other hat, so it's not pictured (and it wasn't for points, anyway).

Here are all the Rav links for the pretties above:

OWL Proposal, Arithmancy, post #279, January 3, 2011 (approved post #381); Herbology, Hat WITH FLAMES, post #163, January 5, 2011 (marked complete post #188); Flying, Candle Flame Cowl WITH FLAMES, post #122, January 6, 2011 (marked complete post #150); Potions, Invigoration Draught Container Cozy WITH FLAMES, post #67, January 6, 2011 (marked complete post #103); Quidditch - Six Hats for T's Mom, post #223, January 11, 2011, Green Blanket Squares for Ry Ry, January 25, 2011; Charms, Granny Square Baby Blanket WITH FLAMES, post #484, January 15, 2011 (marked complete post #561); OWL Proposal, Ancient Runes, post #1253, January 21, 2011 (approved post #1261); Defense Against the Dark Arts, Hamish's Hex-Repelling Hat WITH FLAMES, post #579, January 27, 2011 (marked complete post #653); Transfiguration, The Black Rabbit of Inlé WITH FLAMES, post #588, January 30, 2011 (marked complete post #622); History of Magic, Unity Coasters WITH FLAMES, post #666, January 30, 2011 (marked complete post #676); and, finally, Divination, WIP Countdown Blocks WITH FLAMES, post #534, January 31, 2011 (marked complete post #569).

Transfiguration - First Felted Project Ever!

Okay, I've turned in the six classes required for Second Year Ultimate Quest, but y'all know I'm crazy, right? So, naturally, there had to be MOAR KNITTING. Specifically, I decided to try my hand at felting for Transfiguration. I LOVE the mittens I made for Defense Against the Dark Arts, and wanted Things That Matched to go with them. (I'll be working a scarf & hat into Winter Term classes; there may be a jacket in the works, too, someday.)

I've never felted anything before, mind you. Didn't really see the point. I have, however, made bags before... and getting them so knitting (and kntting needles!) don't fall out... well, that's a challenge. For this, felting might actually be something worth trying, right? So, using the graph from the Flaming Mitts (which I turned into Flame Mittens), I started to knit a bag.


It looks like a sweater....
I made the world's biggest short-row toe to start, which took an entire ball of Debbie Stoller's Full-o-Sheep on size 15 needles - I had to go get more to get a few rows past the "start knitting in the round" point and get the flames started! Then, the flames, then to the black. Then a lot of around and around and around in the black. Then the casting off.


Before - 4' wide, 3.5' tall.
Bigger than a sweater!
Then the terror. Lots of terror - I was going to actively do Something Bad to this lovely, if totally oversized, bag I'd just knitted. Luckily, Cat & Eric of LetsKnit2gether.com have Helpful Hand-Holding Felting Videos (Felting aka the Science Experiment, Pt. 1 and Felting aka The Science Experiment, Pt. 2). Found a lingere bag and some sheets, and ran the washer as hot as it would go. Given that I'd knitted a body-bag sized object, getting it to felt down took a lot longer than I thought it would. And I did some slightly unrecommended things in the process. First off, 20 minutes of hot-hot-hot washing got me this - which was both shorter and wider than I'd expected. For felting, the rule is generally "knit wider than longer", since for normal people, things will shrink in rather than down. Once again, the bizarre way I throw my yarn gave me an opposite result - it shrunk shorter and stayed wider than expected.


2' wide, 1' tall - how strange!
Yeah, it's slightly wonky-looking. So, based on my mother's intuition and several tales of what had happened to sweaters of hers in the early days of her marriage, it went into the DRYER for 20 minutes... and, while still wonky looking when it came out, it was workable. A wee bit of nipping, tucking, stitching and whacking into shape, and it started to resemble the tote-bag I was going for. At this point, it is now 20% of its original size!!!


It's smaller than initially expected, but that's fine - it's still a workable tote-bag size, and the handles I got for it will work even better, since they're for a medium-to-large bag, and this is a nice, solid medium. I used Cat's plastic-bag-over-a-box-and-PULL blocking method, and put the little critter in front of our main heat-vent. By Monday morning, half of it was dry, so I turned it around.


Blocked - roughly 18" tall x 16" wide x 3" deep
Monday night, I put on the handles - and, Ta-Dah! It's an actual totebag! I'm still trying to decide whether or not I'm going to line it; the fabric is pretty darned thick (getting a needle through it to attach the handles? Quite an adventure!)


The inside, unlined
My first felted project, and it came out great!

Sunshine!

Last Thursday, I got to both leave work early *and* sit around in a doctor's waiting room for a while, which caused my mom's hat (shown last Friday) to become complete. Which meant I needed to start something new, so I whipped up my Potions homework for HPKCHC quickly. (That somewhat strange rosewood Boye crochet hook? Works well with Red Heart Super Saver yarn. Probably not what Boye was going for, but...!)

This is an original design, made by completely winging it, as usual. It's also my entry in the Slytherin Summer Jam, which is make a thing inspired by your favorite summer song. (Mine is Kenny Chesney's "Summertime".) Here it is during the early news:


... and here it is during Wheel of Fortune.



I took it to work with me, and it hung out on my workstation:


It also escaped for a while, and hung out with George for a time.


It and George are buds.