The mitt idea took flight ;-)

I apologize for the poor modeling job, it ain't easy taking a picture of your own hand!

The owl mitt worked out just like I envisioned it. Well, except for the thumb, but I figured if I was going to have to pick up stitches and knit tiny rounds anyway, I might as well have a full thumb to show for it. That will be an optional design feature when I write up the pattern.

For now though, I'm going to bed; it was a long, busy, and drudgerous day.

Acid Pop (TM) Scarf!

My mom wanted a bright green scarf this year, so I ordered 4 balls of Shine Worsted from Knit Picks in Green Apple.  It's quite a color, and the Cotton + Modal yarn is sooo soft and buttery!  Also, it was just enough to push me into the free shipping category, yay!

I then went paging through some stitch cards to find something I wanted to turn into a pattern, and I found the Eyelet-Diamond Pattern.  After two repeats of the pattern I knew that I had a bona-fide WIN on my hands, so I'm sharing it with the world even before I'm done knitting it!  It reminds me of the embossing that the Harry Potter book covers have (if you have a hardcover, American version).  The color of the yarn just lends itself so nicely to the title I decided on : *Acid Pop (TM) Scarf* 

CLICK on the Pattern (and HERE) for a FREE PDF download!

The pattern can also be found on Ravelry.

Speaking of Ravelry, I put the pattern up this morning and people LOVED it!  I was so pleasantly surprised to have 130+ people download it today, wow!  :-)

[Side Note: I know the pattern says to end on Row 1, but it really makes more sense to end on Row 2 and then bind off knit-wise.  That's minor though.]

It's a Pullover Sweater for the Wee Wizard

(and the Potter-fan parent who will be amused to no end, probably more so than the recipient)!!!
Wee Wizard Wrobe
(You can click on the title to DOWNLOAD a PDF of the pattern.)
SIZES: [Small/Knut] {Medium/Sickle} Large/Galleon
NEEDLES: US 6 / 4.0 mm (plus an extra for three needle bind-off)
YARN: [2]{3}|3| 85g / 3 oz. balls of Bernat Satin Sport in Black. This yarn is a slippery sport weight acrylic, making it easy to care for and not scratchy at all. Also, any little ones with wool issues will appreciate it.

HOOD:
Cast on [52] {60} 72 sts using the long tail cast-on method. The leftover tail will be used to sew the hood onto the body of the sweater.
Row 1: Purl all sts.
Row 2: Knit all sts.
Row 3: Purl all sts.
Row 4: Knit all sts.
Row 5: Purl all sts.
Row 6: K7,
[K3, M1, K3, M1, K3, M1, K3, M1, K3, M1, K3, M1, K2, M1, K3, M1, K3, M1, K3, M1, K3, M1, K3, M1, K3] ending with K7. [64] sts.
{K4, M1, K4, M1, K4, M1, K4, M1, K4, M1, K2, M1, K2, M1, K2, M1, K4, M1, K4, M1, K4, M1, K4, M1, K4} ending with K7. {72} sts.
K5, M1, K5, M1, K5, M1, K5, M1, K5, M1, K5 M1, K8, M1, K5, M1, K5, M1, K5, M1, K5, M1, K5, M1, K5 ending with K7. 84 sts
Row 7: Purl across. PM in the center of the row.
Row 8: K7, M1, Knit to 1 stitch before center marker M1, K1, Slip Marker, K1, M1, Knit to last 7 stitches, M1, K7.
Row 9: Purl all sts, and be sure to slip center marker.
Repeat rows 8 and 9 three additional times [80] {88} 100 sts.
Row 16: K to 1 stitch before center marker, M1, K1, Slip Marker, K1, M1, K to end. [82] {90} 102 sts.
Row 17: Purl all sts, and be sure to slip center marker.
Repeat rows 16 and 17 until there are [108] {116} 128 sts.
Divide evenly between 2 needles with right sides facing and perform 3 needle bind off.

BACK:
Cast on [54] {64} 74 sts and work in stockinette stitch for [6”] {8”} 10” ending with a WS row. When measuring, be sure to flatten out the rolled edge created by stockinette stitch.
Shaping Armholes: Bind off 6 stitches at the beginning of the next two rows [42] {52} 62 sts. ***
Continue without shaping until the armhole measures [4.5”] {5.5”} 6.5”, ending with a WS row.
Shoulder Shaping: Bind off 7 sts at the beginning of the next 2 rows, [28] {38} 48 sts.
Bind off 8 sts at the beginning of the next 2 rows, [12] {22} 32 sts.
Bind off the remaining [12] {22} 32 sts.

FRONT: (If you’re adding something fancy, like an intarsia House crest, this is the place to do it.)
Work as given for back to ***
Continue without shaping armholes for [2.5”] {3”} 4” ending with a WS row.
Neck Shaping: K [20] {25} 30 sts, turn and leave remaining [34] {39} 34 sts on a stitch holder.
Working on these [20] {25} 30 sts only, continue as follows:
Next Row: Purl all sts.
Work 2 rows, decreasing one stitch at the neck edge in every row. [18] {23} 28 sts.
Work 5 rows, decreasing one stitch at the neck edge in rows 1, 3, 5. [15] {20} 26 sts.
Continue without shaping until armhole measures [4.5”] {5.5”} 6.5”, ending with a WS row.
Shoulder Shaping: Bind off 7 sts, knit to the end. [8] {13} 17 sts.
Next Row: Purl all sts.
Bind off 8 sts, knit to end. [0] {5} 9 sts.
Bind off remaining [0] {5} 9 sts.
Neck Shaping: With RS facing, join yarn and work remaining [34] {39} 34 sts.
Bind off 2 sts and continue to the end of the row [20] {25} 30 sts.
Reverse all shaping and complete to match the other side of the neck.

SLEEVES:
Cast on [35] {40} 45 sts and work in stockinette stitch for 2”.
Increase 1 stitch at each end of every following [4th] {5th} |5th| row to [55] {60} 65 sts.
Continue in stockinette stitch until sleeve measures [8”] {11”} 14", ending with a WS row.
Bind off.

TO FINISH:
Block and press as directed on the yarn label, but don’t block out the natural stockinette curl on the bottom of the sleeves, bottom of the sweater, or on the hood.
Join shoulder seams. Seam up the sides of the body and the sleeves. Sew in the sleeves, being sure to match up the seam with the bound-off stitches at the bottom of the armhole. Join the hood to the body, beginning by pinning the hood at the center of the center of the back and seaming from one side of the front to the other. Weave in ends.
Just like magic*, a sweater has appeared!



* magic ... and a bunch of knitting, seaming, and weaving of ends ;-)

I'm 'designing' a 'pattern', oooh fancy.

Wee Wizard Wrobe in progress!Actually, it is more of a wee pull-over with a nifty hood.
This is the first real pattern that I am designing, so I wanted to make sure that it would be something small, quick to knit, and inexpensive to test knit. When you add that all up it equals baby pattern. Trust me, I speak math.

I don't have kids [Side Note: Did you just hear the world sigh in relief? Yeah, so did I.] so I don't have anyone to try on my Wee Wizard Wrobe when it is complete. Maybe the neighbors would be willing to trade: baby sweater for picture of baby in sweater?

It's going to come in three sizes; small, medium, and large (or Knut, Sickle, and Galleon, if you prefer). But since I don't have a frame of reference for what sizes = which months of development (See: no kids, above) there will just be measurements. Kids come in all sizes, just like regular people, so enough with the population averages being used to size garments! Enough!

As soon as I get all of the pieces made and seamed up I'll get everything compiled into a pattern for the blog! This should be within the next few days (in time for Halloween? Well, only if you're a reasonably quick knitter). Also, I'm getting the hang of all the design posting stuff on ravelry (finally). So, this design will appear there in glorious PDF fashion as well. [Side Note: I can make pdf files now too! And contrary to what Adobe would have you believe, you can do it for free. Yes, free! Google around about it, there are many helpful programs out there.]

I do not concede.

This is the Draco colorway of the Opal Harry Potter series of yarn. I borrowed the pictures from Webs and Opal to illustrate a point [Side Note: Webs may still have some in stock in all the colors, hurry! I'll be here when you get back.] I know that you can see green in it. I can see it too. But my skein doesn't have any of this green in it. Mine has many shades of blue, and NAVY where the green should be. I'm going to unravel the whole damn thing when I get home and there had better be green in it. Otherwise, I have to learn German in order to pen a linguistically and gramatically correct crazy-person letter to Opal asking them Wo ist das Grün in meinen Dracosockenwollen? Hey, that wasn't so difficult. Or I could buy a solid green skein and intersperse its slytherin-y goodness as I desire. But I prefer the crazy-German-letter-writing.

Putting all my yarn in one basket

Normally that would be a bad thing (Ex. the eggs-in-one-basket metaphor), but this was a productive type of cleaning that prevents such tragedies as Yarn Loss.

[Side Note: Eggs in baskets? Ok. My eggs have always come in cartons. Also, I don't think I've ever seen a real live chicken in person before. I am a city girl. Which is a little ironic because I really really enjoy the outdoors and LOVE Man vs. Wild type stuff. Yet, I've never been camping. My parents weren't big on that sort of stuff. They worked hard to put a roof over our heads and food in the kitchen (and braces on our teeth) and probably didn't seen any reason to pack it all up, schlep it up into the wilderness, and 'rough it'. Plus, I had a very poor sense of direction and a tendency to wander, right from the beginning. It's ok, we enjoyed other outside activities, like parks, beaches, and our yard.]

My, that was a lengthy bracket. Where was I ... oh yes, I got all the yarn together and in a basket. I looks like I had more than I thought, since it filled a rather large basket all the way up to the top. The 8 skeins of HP Opal really fleshed it out too.

Speaking of the HP yarn, it's making me a little (more?) crazy as I try to figure out what the designer (yarn painter?) had in mind. I'm looking for their motives and inspiration. Yup, crazy. But the Lupin yarn has sections of greys (his werewolf-ness) and sections with red and gold alternating bits (his Gryffindor-ness) and pink (for Tonks!) . See how nicely it fits! What I can't understand is why the Draco yarn is just shades of blue and grey. It looks almost like denim. I'm not one to criticize someone else's artistic vision, but I need some green! There should be a nice slytherin-y green. Just saying. Grün Opal, grün!

I should take some WIP pictures. I'm making some Draco footie socks (with a surprise!) and a great big coil of white cotton i-cord that will become a drain-board mat thingy for by the sink. I just ripped back my Lupin/Tonks Scarf too. It wasn't turning out the way I wanted, just alternating the colors when I felt like it. There was no autonomy between the two skeins. And besides, it looked like Crayons-in-a-blender. Not good. I'm going to have to ponder my options for a little while on this one. Excuse me while I ponder.

The Dark Mark: a knitting chart

This is the little surprise freebie I've been working on! It's a *NEW AND IMPROVED * knitting chart for the Dark Mark (of Harry Potter fame ... but if you didn't know that, you may not care about the chart anyways).

Please click on the photo to make the photo bigger.
Please click RIGHT HERE to Download the .pdf File

I absolutely LOVED the chart by Storm Moon Knits! So, I went with the "imitation is the most sincere form of flattery" approach and made up one of my own. It's pretty different though, as far as two charts of the same subject are able to be. [Side Note: If you are, in fact, Lindsay Henricks of Storm Moon Knits fame and you don't like me doing this, let me know! Also, holy crap! People actually read this thing?]

While the original is, I believe, much more true to the book representation, my version is more closely modeled after the movie representation. Perhaps I am just splitting hairs.

I have something planned for this little chart, but I'm going to see how it turns out before I go and blog it to death. I'll keep you posted.

email full of excitement today!

An innocuous blog post from Simply Socks pinged in my blog reader today at work. I was unable to focus from that time on. It read (just the black words, the red ones are my additions):

"But for those of you who have been waiting on the Harry Potter sock yarn from Opal," ME ME ME!!! "I've been told that Simply Socks order has shipped!" *faints* "I'll put the yarn on the website as soon as it arrives (and I'll do a quick post on the blog), and I'll also ship out the preorders." Haha, suckers, that's me too! But don't fret if you didn't pre-order: "This could all happen as soon as Friday or mid weekend- it all depends on UPS. I don't have more details, but will post here as soon as I do. I won't be able to send out individual e-mail updates." Get your mouse-clicking fingers in shape for this one: "I do expect the yarn to go quickly b/c of the flood at Opal us yarn stores are only getting about 40% of what we ordered, but I do have A LOT more on order from Opal's second shipment, which will come in about a month."

[Side, um, Post Script?: I'm working on a really nifty chart that will culminate in a terrific (and free) surprise for the blog. Because I'm awesome (and humble?), and maybe someone, someday will actually want it.]

Hey, I can blog with photos too.

So, the camera was located under my nightstand. Of all the places it could have been, why there? Oh well, I found it. I also dug out the book it came with to see if I could "adjust" the settings. I think I should have read the booklet a long, long time ago. It would have prevented much camera related angst. [Note to self: Read the instructions. Really.]Now there will be an inundation of photos. This set is documented proof of the Golden Snitch ornaments I constructed (courtesy of Charmed Knits, once again). They don't have a hanging string yet, but I'm not in any rush.
Haha, don't they look like they'd rather be out in the yard, zooming around in the air?
I really like the 3-toned effect (though knitting with yarn that thick was a real challenge), and the colors aren't quite as true as they could be. But hey, this is as good as it gets without professional photography knowledge.Here's a little sample of the three colors together, though the 'white' is actually butter yellow, the 'uber-golden' color is really goldenrod, and the 'brown' is much brassier in real life.

As you can see, my Sophie bag is complete! It felted marvelously and is super thick. I'm enamored with the charcoal gray color as well as the small-ish size of the bag. It's going to be very useful and get a lot of wear, I can tell already! Joy!
I put a fabric-covered piece of cardboard in the bottom for stability and it's just perfect! I might stitch the straps together to help them stay more balanced in their twistiness, because the twists have a tendency to congregate to one side of the bag or the other. I would make this project again in a heartbeat! Love (1)!

ACHOOO!

I have a cold. Again. And it's making me miserable. Again.

On the upside, it means plenty of couch time for knitting. On the downside, it means I'll have to Lysol any Finished Objects. And the couch.

I knit up a couple golden snitch ball ornaments (out of Charmed Knits. Yes, I realize that this is becoming an obsession. No, I don't mind.) I held together three golden shades of scrap acrylic; light yellow, goldenrod, and a brassy brown that would look gold if it were really shiny. It's a beautiful effect I think. [Side Note: 3 x worsted weight is GIGANTOR! And really hard to knit with. Thankfully I'm out of scraps.]

And I got my box of yarn and stuff from webs today, so I immediately cast on for a footie sock version of my Patriot Socks to use up the leftover yarn. [Side Note: One of the new needles was broken when it arrived :-( the little plastic tip on the end had broken off, but I've made do with just 4 dpns.] I don't know if there's anything webs can do about things damaged in shipping, but it can't hurt to email them, right?

And I'm using one of the Karabella balls to make a sweet little felted purse based on the popular MagKnits Sophie pattern. Mine will be much smaller than the pattern suggests, because I just don't need that much space. If it's too big I probably won't use it. As a matter of fact I could get by with just my wallet, cell phone, and keys. But I love this pattern and the results it has produced (ala ravelry).

Well, the cough medicine just kicked in so I guess that's it for zzzZZZzzz

Too bad I don't have anything interresting to say

Well, the knitting projects have ground to a halt. Grad school nonsense stuff has taken up all of my free time and drained me of any productive energy. Plus, I'm waiting on yarn. I'm waiting on yarn to finish my Quidditch/Rugby sweater. I'm waiting on my Harry Potter Opal Sock Yarn that I have lusted after for so long. I'm waiting for this Karabella fluff to decide what it wants to be.

I guess this is just a natural lull in knitting. It's still 110 degrees when I go to get in my Jeep, forgive me if I don't feel the urgency to knit warm things. Once 'fall' kicks in I'll get back into the groove. [Side Note: Las Vegas doesn't have 'fall' per se, but we have a brief period of 'less hot' followed by many blustery months of chilly and windy directly followed by Easter (when it rains) and then 'hot' again. Once every 5 years or so it will snow here. That is when all hell breaks loose on the roads.]

Oh, I tacked a set of US 1 dpns onto my Webs order, the Pony plasticky kind that I like so much. If I'm going to commit to this sock thing I'm going to need the cavalry (a.k.a. properly sized knitting needles.

I don't know if I want to make all of the HPO yarn into socks, but I had to have a smaller set to get gauge etc. I thought it would be quite poetic to turn the Lupin and Tonks skeins into an object together. Perhaps a simple scarf? I'd like to know why there isn't a Dobby colorway though. Nobody loved socks like Dobby!

Oh well, I've rambled on long enough. I'll try and get it together around here so there can be some quality posts.

Grr.

Well, so much for a WIP weekend. I ran out of the yellow "Butternut" color for my Rugby/Quidditch sweater midway up the second sleeve. I probably won't have enough of the red "cranberry" either though, so now I've got to track down my dye lot. Groan. Let's hope Webs can help me! [Side Note: I don't know how I ran out of yarn though. I ordered what the pattern told me to. I'm consistently getting gauge. Why must the knitting gods smite me so? Why!?]

Also, I've discovered that the crochet gods might be trying to tell me something too. But since it involved stepping on a crochet hook, I don't think it's anything nice or constructive. It didn't go through the skin or anything, but I have a G-hook sized bruise now. Must tidy up room.

P.S. I will report on my Experiment in Yarn soon, but not in this post because it's late and I haven't taken pictures.

Dark Knight = shorter days

We went to see the new batman movie in IMAX late late Saturday night. Originally we had planned to attend the 7 o'clock showing, but our customary half-hour-before-the-movie-starts arrival time was not enough to ensure our seats. I couldn't believe it! We had to go and get our tickets exchanged for the 10:30 showing which let out around 1-ish. The movie was worth the time and money spent, and if you get the chance to see it on an IMAX screen go for it!
The downside was that I slept the day away today. I'm done with the back of the Quidditch sweater though! And I started on one of the sleeves before we went to the movie.

I still haven't picked a pattern for my Ravelympics project (Scarf Stroke) yet. I wonder if it's possible to have knitters block. Only five days until the start. I had better get on this if I'm going to be a serious competitor :-) [Side Note: This is me psyching myself up.]

Bye Bye July!

Tuesday and Wednesday got away from me this week, bloggingly speaking. In other news a lot of knitting has been going on around here, as well as other home maintaining endeavors. [Side Note: Mom, if you're going to hit all of the sprinklers, please let me mow the lawn instead. Or put that bum I call a brother to work.]

I have been working away on my Quidditch sweater and I'm up to the armhole decreases on the back now. Yay! The stripes match up from the back to the front, which had me concerned. (By "concerned" I mean "I didn't think about that until I had already completed both stripes on the back part and the idea hit me like a lightning-bolt of panic.")

I decided to enter the scarf 'competition' in the ravelympics and I'd like to use the yarn I harvested from an old sweater. I have to pick a pattern pretty soon here if I'm going to swatch before the event kicks off, but I don't know what I'm in the mood to knit. What would my hands (and the yarn in question) like to work on in a mad dash of 17 days from start to finish?

One quarter of a sweater

This is the front of the quidditch style sweater I'm making for myself.

I like the Plymouth encore worsted a lot! It's a step up from the
cheapo acrilics that I like to use when trying new things/learning but
it's not expensive at all. It's got just enough wool to be warm and
soft without being hard to care for or causing me to have an allergic
reaction! Yay! Must keep knitting!

Justification Plz?

I wanted a rugby style sweater, cardinal and gold with USC pride in every stitch, to wear to homecoming this year. I have hoodies and jackets and my Gryffindor SC scarf, but my jerseys are getting worn out. And they have acquired a beer smell that won't come out.

[Side Note: My mom tossed them in the wash just before the Stanford game last year. Their first washing since the National Title. Collective gasp anyone? Her argument was "I can't even wash the smell out, how can you possibly belive that I washed the 'luck' out?!?". Coincidence? I think NOT.]

Besides, ol' #11 and #5 have long since moved on to NFL careers, but haven't reached the epic status that allows alums to wear #34 around.

It's ok though because I am coping with my Paranoid Sweater Phobia quite well and ordered yarn from Webs for the project. It's the Quidditch Sweater from Charmed Knits (because the more I knit, the more I love this book cover to cover). $34 including shipping and I will have a great sweater by November-ish. {Insert plot twist here}

But then I found this:

For the low low price of $27.99! And it got me to thinking. Yes, dangerous 'thinking'. Even with shipping, it comes out the same as the yarn + notions and involves Zero work on my part. I never should have signed up for the damn e-newsletter at Whimsic Alley.

>:~[ (That's my scowling Snape smiley, haha)

Yes, I'm still making my sweater, believing that it will be far superior to the mass produced model in quality, durability, and warmth. And because denial isn't just a river in Egypt anymore.

Ulterior (Sock) Motives

I have a confession to make: I have only soldiered on in my sock attempts to prepare myself for some Opal yarn in the Harry Potter colorways. They come out in the fall, sometime before the movie. Since I've decided that I must possess them all, I feel a little obligated to actually make them into something. Though the prospect of just keeping the lovely skeins around (or having them framed) is quite appealing to me :-)

This got me thinking about the role the HP series has played in my knitting. After reading the books and having myself sorted (via sortinghat.com or something like that) into Slytherin I decided that I must have a scarf. [Side Note: Again, I'm not a bad person; though I suspect that my ambition can sometimes set my moral compass spinning, it does find itself again eventually.] I put aside the fact that I seldom visit latitudes North of, oh, Southern California or so, and sought out a Slytherin scarf for myself.

When I finally found a store selling them I couldn't bring myself to pay some $27 dollars for it. The USC bookstore sold a lovely Gryffindor 'SC scarf that fall for the bargain price of $10 and I caved, but it still wasn't the same. I felt like I was misrepresenting myself by wearing it to the movie premier. Weird huh? I found plenty of other things in WhimsicAlley to amuse me for hours on end (including a quill pen and ink, and a Dark Mark temporary tattoo), but the crafty part of my brain was whirring along at full tilt. "How are scarves made? They look woven together, not sewn up patches of color. Gee, I wonder how they do that. OH, knitting would do that ... right?" is how my internal monologue went. TO THE INTERNET!

After some brief googling I discovered that people can, in fact, knit these things themselves! I dashed out to Michaels, bought a skein of green and one of grey and a pair of needles. I had no regard for the type of yarn, it's gauge, or even the size of the needles really, so you probably know how this turned out. I worked diligently on my very first project and once I had mastered the Knit and Purl stitches (and realized that Knitting on BOTH sides means you end up with garter stitch) the scarf seemed to fly off the needles. Of course I was using US 10s (because 10 sounded like a nice round number at the time). I was very proud of my efforts, but not so much of the scarf. I had picked up reading a few knitting related sites and had learned so much that, despite the lacklustre scarf, I was hooked (or knitted, rather, as this isn't crochet afterall).

The scarf eventually ended up being ripped out and used to make Salazar the Bear. And I've never gotten around to making myself a proper Slytherin scarf either, but this doesn't trouble me much anymore because of a) the climate I live in and b) the fact that my halloween costume robe is Gryffindor too. [Side Note: this is because I could not find a suitable green lining fabric last year to save my life, but red was everywhere and on sale!]

Speaking of Sal though, I've found that his neck is a bit floppy which makes him look as if he's puzzled by something. Rather than busy myself with reinforcing his neck I decided to take a page out of Nearly Headless Nick's book and make him a scarf to hold his head up instead, haha! I took the book scarf pattern as it was originally posted and just kept knitting it until it was long enough for Sal. I'll have him try it on when I get home. [Imagine him with his head cocked to the side as if to say "For me?"]

Book Scarf: for keeping books warm

I once saw a sweater pattern that was double-knitted so that it would be reversible and thought to myself "That's like knitting two sweaters at once! Who would do that to themselves?" And I've never had any desire to double-knit anything since.

Until now. I saw a cute idea for a bookmark scarf somewhere in the blog-o-sphere and decided that for an object no more than an inch wide I could make an exception and give double-knitting a try. It was surprisingly easy to keep track of, more efficient than knitting something so small in the round, and turned out great! I don't think I'll be making any reversible sweaters, but I'd sure make this little project again and again (it only took an hour, and that includes the time I spent pondering the long-tail purl cast on).

P.S. As I was tagging this post I decided that this project could be related to the Tiny Weasley Sweater because they are the same scale and would probably go well together :-)

Oh, this is nifty!

Mugglenet is reporting that the German based yarn company Opal has released a new fall '08 line of Harry Potter yarn! It's too bad the dollar is so weak (in comparison to the Euro, we seem to be holding our own with the Yuan for the moment), or I'd order myself some right now! I've got a powerful urge to get the Dumbledore yarn and make warm woolly socks out of it ;-)

"Half-Blood Prince Sneak Peek by way of Yarn company RupertGrint.net has spotted these new spools of yarn from German yarn company Opal. They have a new Half-Blood Prince collection with 8 color themes to be released Fall 2008. Each of the themes represents one character from the sixth Potter film and includes a picture.

Those characters include Harry, Ron, Malfoy, Lupin, Tonks, Dumbledore, and Hedwig. Tonks most notably has a new, much shorter, haircut. Check 'em out in our gallery!"

Fair Isle (in the round no less!)

I like to take on new projects that challenge my knitting abilities, but this one was probably one of my most ambitious. It took me a few weeks of on-and-off knitting, but the satisfaction upon completion was well worth it!
This Gryffindor-inspired fair isle bag (that I've made into a pillow instead) came from the freebie pattern site I mentioned before: http://www.freshislefibers.com/Patterns/hpknittinglinks.htm
but was created by Rosemary Waits, of Quietish blog fame.

It's knitted in a plain ol' worsted weight Caron yarn on a 29" set of circular needles. I'm not precisely sure what size they are because I didn't buy them, they just sort of got passed down to me (though nobody in the fam. knits ...) They worked out just fine as far as the gauge went, so I'm not going to worry about it.

I pirated the pillow insert from one of my bed pillows though, just for testing/sizing/picture purposes, so it will have to be put back. Once I get another insert (16" please!) I'll sew up the ends and finish the pillow.