Sunday, March 7, 2010

The Logistics of a Harry Potter Scarf

So, I'm thinking about Harry Potter scarves. I'm making all 4 house scarves: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, Slytherin- for my friend Rob. So far I've done Slytherin and Hufflepuff. Hufflepuff came first, back when I didn't really know what I was getting myself into:



As you can see, it was basically just yellow and black, the black stripes seed stitch and the yellow stockinette. It rolled up around the edges horribly. So for the Slytherin I made some changes: I made the green stripes seed stitch and the silver basketweave, to reduce the rolling effect that goes along with stockinette. I also added an inital to each end: as Rob's are R.L, one end said "R" and the other "L" in fair isle. The problem? It ended up looking a little like "right" and left".


(I don't have a pic of that completed scarf, but here's what the yarn looked like)



So my next scarf is Ravenclaw. I set out on this scarf with more knowledge and a good idea of how I want it to look, sort of unlike the previous two. I realized the first two scarves, with their equally-sized stripes, looked like the ones worn as a lower-classman at Hogwarts. (Like in the pic above.) They wear these in their first two (three?) years, but later, the scarves look like this....


(Sorry I couldn't find an in-movie screenshot.) So anyway, the next scarf (Ravenclaw) promises to be far better than the first two. I plan on following the stripe pattern above, and I'm still fair-isling in the initals. This time, though, I'll put "RL" on BOTH sides so it doesn't end up looking like directions. I'm not decided on wether or not I'll ad fringe, though...

And to end things on a great note, here's Luna Lovegood.


-Christine

Friday, March 5, 2010

Snowstorm Hat: a new pattern completed!

Made from this pattern: http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/90022AD.html?noImages. It was so easy to knit, I made it in less than 2 hours. The yarn feels super soft and nice and warm.
Alterations I made? I knitted it in the round. I actually didn't even realize it was supposed to have a seam until Lucas informed me... but I don't get why you would need to make it like that when it's so much easier to knit in the round. I hate sewing knitted pieces together. Also, I re-drafted the pattern for the ear flaps because they didn't seem big enough to me. It's really warm and nice to wear, and I basically haven't taken it off since I made it.


If you've never made a hat before, this is a great option: for beginning knitters you can work on knitting in the round, decreasing, rib knit and garter stitch, and also the fine art of pom-pom making. For everyone else, it's so easy you can just whip them out assembly-line style and give them to your friends.
Next project: a Harry Potter scarf (Ravenclaw). I'll keep you posted.
-Christine

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Attempts at Cooking



Today, Lucas and I made a pizza. Completely from scratch: the crust and everything.


Sometimes we just get this desire to cook, although admittedly, I'm for sure no Rachel Ray or anything. I mean, I can really only knit and sew and that's it. Lucas is better than I am, though. In comparison, he's practically a chef.

Our pizza was half pepperoni, half broccoli, with parmesan, mozzarella, and cheddar cheese. We should probably have added more cheese, though....

The best part was kneading the dough. Although I added twice as much water as the recipe called for, so we had to make it a double batch. That was a fail. Umm, but it was okay in the end?



The end result? Tasty. But next time less crust, more toppings. Stay tuned for more cooking adventures, because this may become a tradition....

Monday, February 1, 2010

Uganda


-Lucas

So this is a scarf I made for my friend Crystal, its called Mixed Message Scarf-pattern found here http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/90023AD.html?noImages=. It was a fairly easy pattern but its very time consuming. It was my first cable scarf and a very easy to follow pattern.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

We Sorta Kinda Really Hate Intarsia...!


So... you might like this picture, but if you've EVER done intarsia, it makes you want to throw up. Seriously, it will make you want to do things to yourself that you've never thought of doing before. These are bobbins, for you newbies. AKA little balls of HATE. If you work with more than three at a time, you'll want to rip out your hair.





(Close-up of back)


See, this is what we mean by little balls of hate. Look at that tangle action.

Anyway, on a happier note, here's our first collaboration project. This pattern's from Lion Brand.com- access here: http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/70529AD.html?noImages=. Lucas is making it in white, red and pink for a friend named Liviy, hence the L. Christine is making her puke-nasty scarf for a girl named Meg, who we're sad to say, thinks brown and black go together... :( I'm sorry if you ever read this, Meg, but this scarf burns our retinas with hate.
... so we had to add pics.


(sorry if this triggers anyone's gag reflex....)


More Winter Wonder


























- Christine and Lucas (with our Norwegian friend Cecilie thrown in there)

Friday, January 29, 2010

Snow Days

Today looked like this....







..So there wasn't any school. Also, I thought I should get around to posting something I've made, so here's something small: a new pencil case. Made from some interesting looking wool, and alot of free stitching for a crazy effect. I wanted it to have personality.... took about an hour, I'm happy.



-Christine

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Another Greetings


As you can probably already tell I'm the other half of the blog. My name is Lucas I'm 16 and a junior in high school. I play bassoon and flute and am very interested in music. I like to knit for other people. Kinda weird I know but I just haven't knitted anything for myself but maybe on down the road... I also like cake decorating-hence the picture-and ceramics so you might be seeing a few pictures of those to. So as Christine was explaining earlier we created a knitting book so to speak and are working through all the patterns to strengthen our knitting and patter reading skills and come out with a lot of scarfs, hats, socks and so on. So feel free to join us along our journey and try some of them out with us. We will be posting our first pattern soon so be looking for updates!

Greetings

Hey everybody, I'm Christine, 1/2 of the authors of this blog.



We thought we'd start this to share all of the random stuff we make, mostly knitting, in my case alot of sewing. We're trying to expand our knitting skills by working through a bunch of patterns together, and hopefully learn alot along the way. I'll also be occasionally posting things I've sewn, or just whatever I'm wearing that day. Anyway, that's all from me for now... I need to go actually work on something now. :/