Making knitting review harry potter weasley

Every Christmas, Mrs. Weasley makes her kids (and Harry) their very own knitted sweater, each customized with the first letter of their name. If you, like me, have always desperately wished you had your own but either couldn’t afford to buy one or are useless with a set of knitting needles (you’re in good company there), look no further. Below is an easy DIY for turning any knitted sweater into a Weasley jumper. Let’s get started!

What You’ll Need:

• A knitted sweater
• Yarn in the color you want your initial (not too fluffy)
• Extra yarn in a different color for marking (optional)
• A ruler
• Scissors
• A needle with a large eye, or a yarn needle
• Paper or fabric for cutting your template
• Pins
• Thimble (optional)
• Puppet pal friends for company (extremely optional but also extremely recommended)

Directions:

Step 1: Use your ruler to measure the center of your sweater front, going from armpit to armpit. Place a pin to mark the spot.

Step 2: Cut the letter you’ll be stitching out of paper (or scrap fabric if, for some reason, you have no paper at hand but lots and lots of fabric) in the rough size you’d like it to be. Pin it down to your sweater front, centering over the pin you used to mark the middle. Now’s the time to adjust the size and placement, so make sure you get it where you’d like it. I think next time I would have done a slightly smaller letter, but live and learn!

Step 3: Using a different color of yarn if you have it, stitch the outline of your letter into the sweater. It’s handy to place a piece of cardboard or a placemat between the layers of your sweater so you don’t catch the back when you’re stitching into the front and end up with something unwearable where you have to go back and do a ton of unpicking. When you’ve successfully outlined your shape into only one layer, remove the template.

Step 4: Using the knit lines of the sweater as a grid, begin filling in your outline using cross-stitches. If you’ve never done these before, don’t despair; it’s quite easy and this is a forgiving project if your stitches (like mine) don’t end up being all the exact same size. If you’re an old hand, skip the following paragraph, and get stitching.

Cross-stitch basics: Cut a piece of yarn about as long as your arm and tie a knot in one end. Thread the other end through the eye of your needle and only pull a little through (see the threaded yarn in the picture top left for an example). Starting from the inside of your sweater, poke the needle up and pull it through until the knot catches. Make a diagonal stitch across several lines of knitting on the sweater (depending on how chunky a knit you’ve got and how small you’d like your Xs to be) and pull the yarn through, being careful not to pull too tight, or it will bunch up your sweater. Poke the needle up below the end of your last stitch and make another diagonal line to form an X, ending the same number of knit stitches above your starting point to make it symmetrical. Keep making stitches until you’ve got a line of Xs, then move over and start the next line. When you run out of yarn, tie a knot on the inside, snip off the extra thread, and start again.

Step 5: Using the sweater’s knitting as a grid, continue making Xs within your template until you’ve filled it in completely. If you make a mistake, just unthread your needle and pull out the Xs until you’re back to a spot where you’re happy with it.

Step 6: When your letter is completely filled in, snip the yarn you used for the outline and undo the stitches.

All done! Make sure to hand-wash this sweater rather than popping it in the washing machine, so you don’t accidentally lose all your hard work if a knot comes undone. This makes the perfect gift for the wannabe-Weasley in your life or a fun thing to make for yourself. Happy Christmas!

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Recently published is Harry Potter: Knitting Magic: The Official Harry Potter Knitting Pattern Book. That this is an official Harry Potter knitting pattern book should lend some weight to it being on your shelf. It’s put together by Tanis Gray, a knitting and craft expert, with the patterns authored by a collection of people. Everything “officially Harry Potter” that I’ve seen has been of high quality, so you know the powers that be are making sure there’s quality control in place.

The projects in the book are all knitting, and vary in difficulty from one lightning bolt to five lightning bolts. I can knit, but I’m not too skilled yet, so I’m comfortable with the one and two lightning bolt projects. Some of the really impressive ones, though, are more difficult. Fortunately, I’m only 46 and have plenty of years to learn more knitting skills.

Here are some of my favorite patterns in the book: a stuffed Hedwig, Mrs. Weasley’s Home-Knit Christmas Sweaters, Hogwarts House Scarves, Mirror of Erised Cabled Cowl, Buckbeak Pullover, Beauxbatons Academy of Magic Capelet, The Deathly Hallows Lace-Knit Beaded Shawl, The Sorting Hat Hanging Display, and Order of the Phoenix Lace-Knit Throw Blanket (which requires some very long circular needles). That should demonstrate the variety of pattern selections.

Though it’s been out for over a month, I’m a very slow knitter and it’s taken me this long to try out a couple of the patterns (even though I received the book late last year!). I started easy with The Seven Horcrux Washcloths, since they’re just basic knitting, purling, and counting. Then I moved on to a project that looked manageable, the Golden Snitch Socks.

The Seven Horcruxes Washcloths (one lightning bolt in difficulty) are a fun project. As you knit each row, you get to slowly see the image emerge, like the world’s slowest dot matrix printer. It is hard to knit these while doing anything else, though, because each row has different knitting/purling numbers to count. In the above photo, I knit the green one, and my teenage daughter is working on the yellow one. There are seven patterns, of course, so you can have a whole horcrux washcloth set (or gift one to your favorite Potterphile), and it’d be fun to knit them with a craft group, each person doing a different horcrux.

The Golden Snitch Socks (three lightning bolts in difficulty) were an adventure. The fact that I’d never knitted socks, nor knitted in the round, nor knitted in more than one color, didn’t deter me. It probably should have, though, as the learning curve was quite steep. I tried circular knitting needles and that was a disaster because I couldn’t keep the tension. So I took a page out of my mom’s (not literal) knitting book and went with double pointed needles. They were a bit tricky, but, with the help of some rubber stoppers on the ends to boost my confidence, they did the trick. But with the size 2 yarn, it took forever to make any progress. I learned the hard way not to carry yarn too tightly. I may not ever make socks again, but I will use all the techniques I learned making these for other, future projects.

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Having worked through two of the patterns and studied numerous others, I can say with confidence that the patterns in this book are very well done and easy to follow, even for someone who still considers herself a novice. There are plenty of clear, detailed instructions with standard knitting terminology, along with pattern charts for everything you need, and lots of photos of the finished item to guide you. There were a few terms and techniques I wasn’t familiar with, such as the kitchener stitch, but it’s all explained in the glossary in the back along with a chart of knitting abbreviations. You can always visit YouTube for visual demonstrations, too, if you’re still having a hard time.

The project I really want to tackle in this book is the Hogwarts House Cardigan (fortunately, just two lightning bolts in difficulty), but I knew I’d never get that project done in time to write up this review. So that’s next, for the future.

In addition to the detailed knitting patterns and lots of photos, the book includes scenes from the movies, concept art, Behind the Magic facts, and more. I wouldn’t buy it just for this small amount of bonus material, but it helps set the mood for the knitting projects, to be sure.

In short, if you love all things Harry Potter and you love to knit (especially if you’ve got some experience), the Harry Potter: Knitting Magic: The Official Harry Potter Knitting Pattern Book should be in your knitting library. Full stop. This book is so well done, and the wide variety of knitting projects means there’s something in here for every Harry Potter fan. Get it now and start knitting those holiday gifts!

Tip: Though magic wands are vaguely knitting needle shaped, I don’t recommend using them for knitting. You might accidentally place a curse on your dog!

What yarn to use for a Weasley sweater?

We suggest Blue Sky Fibers Woolstok or Woolfolk Far. Mrs Weasleys Home-Knit Christmas Sweaters: 1120 – 2240 yards of worsted weight yarn: We suggest Neighborhood Fiber Co Studio Worsted and Manos Cabrito. Nagini Lariat: 240 yards of aran weight yarn. We suggest Woolfolk Luft.

Did Mrs Weasley make Harry a sweater?

So Harry's first Weasley jumper – an emerald-green creation that came with a large box of home-made fudge – was Molly's way of welcoming him to the fold.

Who knits in Harry Potter?

Molly Weasley usually knits her family jumpers at Christmas. She tends to knit pictures relating to something that the receiver likes or the initial of their first name. She also sends Harry Potter a Weasley jumper each Christmas, as he is a close friend of the family, arguably a de facto member.