Saturday, January 15, 2011

Repello Muggletum

A week or two ago, DD1 came home from school with the very exciting news that a boy in her class would be having a Harry Potter party for his birthday in March, and he was planning to invite her. I had started reading her the series about a month or two ago, and she is really into it (as are her parents) so everybody in the house is really jazzed about this. Naturally, attendees will be expected to come in some sort of costume, and since we are super-geeky in this family, we immediately set about planning what she would wear. She wants to go as Hermione.

Grandma will be crocheting a Gryffindor scarf. In fact, it's almost done.

I will be sewing up a black robe, probably using the schematic from the "Wizard Robe" pattern in my copy of "Charmed Knits". And if I have the time, I may also be digging into Charmed Knits again to make the Student Wizard Cap pattern.

But what is really going to make this costume fun is the vest I just finished making her, with Gryffindor colours in the ribbed edgings. I decided to use the Pembroke Vest pattern. This was a great choice. The pattern was coming along really well:

In progress, 2011-01-13

Really well, that is, until I was halfway up to the armhole shaping on the front, because that's when I ran out of grey yarn. (This was not just a fun costume piece, but also a stashbuster.) As I am completely hopeless at the Geminio charm, I could not make any more of the yarn appear out of nowhere, so instead, I had to shorten it by one pattern repeat. Fortunately, this was not a huge problem fit-wise, since following the pattern instructions for the 6-year size had given me something that was rather too long on my kid; but it did involve cutting the back apart and grafting it back together again, which was annoying. However, it all worked out in the end:

Front
Completed, front

Back
Completed, back

Tadah!

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