Sunday, December 27, 2009

Wizardy Whiz!

Funny, I had been feeling bad about not giving Whiz enough blog attention...and this is his 3rd post in the past month or so!

For Christmas, Psych commissioned a scarf for Whiz. A Wizard scarf. Specifically a Harry Potter Gryffindor House Scarf for Whiz.

I have a knitting book called Charmed Knits in which every pattern is from/inspired by/based on the Harry Potter books and movies. In it, there is a pattern for a Gryffindor house scarf.

As usual though, I didn't like the pattern all that much. I thought the stripes were too wide, the scarf itself was too wide, and that the yarn called for would be itchy. So I changed it up. I substituted a different yarn, used a different needle size, cast on fewer stitches, and changed colors more frequently. In fact, the only thing that stayed the same was that it was striped, knit in the round, and had fringe.

The first problem I had was with the yarn. As mentioned in previous posts, this scarf DEVOURED yarn. It sucked it up like it was the black hole of knitting projects. For more information on the pain I suffered as a result, please refer to previous posts.

The second problem was that the pattern did not give a very accurate finished length, instead it told how many stripes to knit, and what the finished length would be (approximately) including the fringe. My scarf stripes were a different dimension, so when I had finished the completed number the scarf was still really short. Since Whiz is a kid, his neck is thinner than mine and he is shorter than I am. I had a hard time judging size based on myself. Solution: take the scarf to the library and try it on one of our volunteer's third grade sons! Success!

I delivered the scarf to Psych at the ornament exchange. (My normal delivery time/place is church, but there was no way to do that without Whiz seeing.) She loved it.

Christmas morning, bright and early, she texted me a picture of him proudly wearing the finished product!

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