Knitting yourself Centered ^_^

So I may have mentioned before that I had started a project for Lewy's Christmas present, if I haven't then I'm mentioning it now!

It's a very special project, if you are familiar with Reiki and Chakras then you will know what it's all about.

I searched for ages trying to find some patterns for the symbols to knit a wall hanging with or even some
pillows with but there was nothing, so I took it upon myself to make some and share them with the world.


You can use these patterns in any way you like, but please PLEASE dont try and sell these patterns anywhere. They were created to be shared for free to any one who would like to use them.
I used them stacked on top of each other for a wall hanging, but you can use them any way you like. Pillows might make a good thing or even use them a squares in a throw rug or something!

1. The Base Chakra, this one will be red. Now I have done them so that the symbol stands out against the background, the background being the main color of the chakra.

2. The Sacral Chakra, this one will be orange.

3. The Solar Plexus Chakra, this one will be yellow.

4. The Heart Chakra, this one will be green.

5. The Throat Chakra, this one will be blue.

6. The Third Eye Chakra, this one will be light blue or violet. (I made mine light blue because I didn't have any violet yarn available and I didn't want to go to the shops just to get one skein that not even half would be used)



 

7. The Crown Chakra, this one is supposed to be ultraviolet, but since that's out of our color spectrum you can use some iridescent yarn if you can find it, I chose to use white only because I had some available and it is an appropriate color to use for this chakra.







I hope you have found this interesting and that you will use them!!! As always more work available on my Deviant Art page! and FOLLOW ME ON FACEBOOK!!!!  And brand new please visit my Ravelry Shop!!Hope all my lovely followers have had a very merry Christmas and an extra special New Year. Hope 2013 brings you everything you hope for and more!!!

I choose you Pikachu!

So here's a new project for you all!

A lovely little Pikachu beanie!! Now the size of this beanie will depend of on the size of the yarn you use and the needles. This is a pattern for single needles so you will have a seam up the back. You can knit in the round if you choose however.

The pattern is basically a beanie like the one found here. It does say in the title that it is an adult size beanie but when I made the pattern it didnt fit me. I used normal 8ply yarn and size 4 needles, it ended up being more of a childs size beanie.

After you have made the beanie in yellow then you need to make the ears and the stripes for the back.

to make the ears:

Cast on 40 stitches in yellow, stocking stitch for 10 centimeters decreasing to 20 stitches along the way, switch to black yarn stocking stitch for 5 centimeters decreasing to 6 stitches along  the way. Pull yarn through remaining stitches and pull tight. Sew closed. Make two ears. Sew to the sides of the beanie.
Make the stripes for the back. Cast on 10 stitches in light brown, knit one row increasing to 20 stitches, purl one row, knit one row decreasing to 10 stitches, cast off. Make three stripes and sew to the back of the beanie over the seam to keep them in line.

Cut out two large circles in black felt and a small black triangle. Cut out two small white felt circles for the eyes, and two large pink or red circles for the cheeks. Sew the face in place and stitch a mouth using black yarn.

You can find proper patterns for sale, but this one's free!

All the BAGS!!!!

So we have finally come to it, the last of the bags and scarves!!!!

We'll start with the awesome set of Harry potter bags found HERE!! Now when and if you try these yourself here are a few tips:
1. 1 normal ball of 8ply yarn will make a bag as large as the Hufflepuff/Ravenclaw/Slytherin bags in the photo (the black thing in the background is of course my laptop just for a size reference) Of course you can use any size yarn you like and the bag size will vary.
2. You don't have to have the fringe at the bottom, you can sew the bag up and it will still look nice.
3. Because of all the yarn crossovers on the inside, if you actually plan on using your new bag for anything it would be best to make a lining for it. (I just used a Flat Fats from Spotlight it was enough to do both bags I made in each color with enough left over for a third bag if you choose to make it)
4. The colors I have used are the actual colors recommended in the pattern but you can make them whatever color you like!
5. The patterns also tell you to knit in the round, now I myself am only a novice knitter teaching myself, and I havent quite grasped the ability to do that yet. These bags can be knitted conventionally on two needles and stitched together on the open side. It's barely noticeable.
6. We all make mistakes, I made several when making these bags. I forgot a stitch or missed a color, but here's the thing, at first glance you wont notice at all! So dont think that you need to start completely over just because you accidentally made 6 stitches in the main color instead of 5!

Over all I know it has taken me FREAKING AGES to complete all of these, and considering that I have only done 8 bags it really has been a bit too long. But when you consider we have moved house and had to unpack, as well as remodeling and actual real life work that took me two hours to get too and from every day and working weekends, I really hope you all dont hold it against me...

Now for the scarves!!! I am admittedly still completing these but I have finished the first set (hence the photo)

Now I cant take full responsibility for these, The pattern that gave me the Idea can be found HERE!! but as you can plainly see they dont look alike. All I did was google "Hogwarts House Scarves Images" and there were two types of scarves. The one with chunky blocks of color (as seen in the photo) and then one for the older students which has large blocks and smaller stripes (this is the set I am still in the process of making).
As you can see in the photo the scarves tend to roll up in themselves after you make them, easily fixed by ironing them flat! I have decided to mix it up a bit and only add a fringe to some of the scarves and leave others with a plain edge.

Now for the next item on my to do list: Making the wands! This one's gonna be messy folks!

Winter Project #1

Introducing the Harley Quinn Beanie!!!!

I got really bored and needed a break from some of my Harry Potter stuff, so I decided to take on a winter project. It is getting quite chilly down here in Aus afterall!

I decided to make a beanie for myself after my favorite character from Batman, Harley Quinn! 

I'm sure that there are a few patterns out there for this type of hat but I didn't use one this time. So here's my free pattern for it!

Step #1 measure around your head.

Step #2 divide that measurement in half (half of the hat will be red, the other half black)

Step #3 get your materials together.

I used two 50g balls each of Moda Vera Blissful of black and red, and one 50g ball of Moda Vera Blissful white, size 2 straight needles, size 4 straight needles, a yarn needle, and a pompom maker called twinkle bee.

The size of the needles will depend on the yarn you are using, but as a general note I would use one size smaller than the recommended size for the yarn, and then use the size recommended for the yarn.

Now the amount of stitches you cast on will depend on what type of yarn you are using, but just cast on enough so that when you stretch it out on the needles it is equal to the measurement of half your head. We will start with the smaller needles, and cast on your stitches, first with red. Continue in stocking stitch for about 6 rows, be sure to stop on the wrong side to change needles.

Change needles to the larger size and continue knitting for approximately 8 rows in stocking stitch.

After you have gotten this far we will start to decrease our stitches. I use the Knit 3 Knit 2 together method for decreasing my stitches. After each row of decreases continue to knit about 4 rows in stocking stitch before decreasing another row.

Once you have knitted to the desired length and have about 8 stitches remaining cut the yarn leaving a long tail, thread this tail through the remaining stitches and pull tight.

Now do the exact same thing with the Black yarn.

The next step is a bit tricky. You need to measure how far down to sew each arm of the beanie. To do this take one of the colors and place it on the side of your head, and pinch down until you have reached your scalp, remove the yarn from your head and move your fingers up approximately 1 inch. Sew the tail of yarn using the yarn needle to this point on half the beanie. Do the same with the other half.

Now using either color thread or remaining yarn sew both halves of the beanie together.

Now we make the pompoms. We will use the pompom maker from the Twinkle Bee set. If you cant get one of these then that is ok just use something small to wrap your yarn around, but be sure that you can tie some yarn around it before you have to cut it otherwise it will be very difficult!

I wrapped my yarn around this pompom maker exactly 100 times. On the large end of the maker.

Make sure when you tie your yarn around the pompom maker that it is very tight, and that you leave a long tail to use to sew the pompoms to the beanie.

On each of the arms of the beanie at the end you will need to sew the pompom using the yarn needle. I turned mine inside out, but with the yarn I used it was quite messy trying to flip it right side out once I had the pompom secured.

After the pompoms have been sewn on, try the hat on to make sure it fits! And Viola!!! You have your very own Harley Quinn beanie! Of course this doesn't have to be just a Harley Quinn beanie, you can use it as a jesters hat, add your own patterns to the knitting, add more arms, use different colors, whatever you like!

The Long Awaited Robes!!!

(Just a disclaimer: This is not my video this is not me! I do not take credit for this work. I do take credit for the Slytherin robe which I made by following the instructions in this video that I found on Youtube)

So now as promised!!!! Here is the video I used to make my Slytherin Cloak for my Harry Potter night costume. Of course in the video they made a Gryffindor robe, the only difference is that instead of using burgundy I used green material.
In the video they used king size sheets, now I don't know about where you guys come from but here in Australia sheet sets do not come that cheap (especially king size ones!), so to save myself some money I just went out to a local craft shop and got a few meters of material, I used silk because I like the way it drapes and feels when you wear it, but you can really use any sort of material you like. You don't even have to make a Hogwarts Robe out of it, you can literally make any sort of robes you like following the simple instructions on the video!
One other little thing I did differently from the video is that I hand sewed the entire robe, I liked to be able to see my stitches and it really gives it that home made look, but you can use a sewing machine it will be a lot faster AND probably make it look a bit more professional.

The photo to the left is my finished product! You can tell from the video that I used different materials they are pretty shiny in the picture, but thats alright, this is a matter of personal tastes and you can use whatever you like!
Just remember when you are measuring your material you want to add a few inches to each measurement, especially if you are using a sewing machine because the foot will take up some of the length. The length of the whole robe is entirely personal. I made mine just long enough to reach the floor, but if you are short like me then there isn't really much you can do about things being too long. And the arms need to come over your hands, i added about 4 extra inches to my measurements so the robe wouldn't be too short when I raised my arms, and remember that they are supposed to be big, so remember to cut them that way! I cut mine like old witches robes where the sleeves kind of fan out, but I only made it subtle.

There are some little embellishments that I chose to use as well on my cloak. I added the hood just like from the video, but I also added a house patch and a clasp to close the robe.

To the left is the clasp I used. Just a simple rope clasp that I got from Spotlight for pretty cheap. Since I was hand sewing everything I thought it would be a bit easier for me to sew each side of the clasp onto a small square of black felt. That way I could just sew around the square instead of trying to make sure I caught all of the details and this way it also gives the clasp a bit more of a larger area, making sure that it holds tight and wont rip your material as easily, this is a good thing to try and do if you have a really long robe just in case you step on it. To the right is my Slytherin House Crest Patch. This one I bought off ebay for about $4 and just ironed it onto the material, but you could always make your own if you choose, there are a few tutorials on youtube that are good, but I wanted to save some time in finishing it.

So there you have it! The long awaited House Robes Blog is finally up and going places! I hope you enjoyed it!!!

Le Hufflepuff Bags!

So once again I present to you the Hufflepuff Bag Set (free pattern by clicking here)! I'm still working on the scarves but they will be up soon.

Now you may notice that this set of bags differs a bit from the others, this is because I used two different types of yarn. The black yarn is just a normal 12 ply where the yellow is the very soft baby type yarn used to make blankets or baby clothing....
This made it difficult to do the fringe at the bottom, as every time I tried to pull a bit of yellow yarn through I ended up pulling the fluff off of it and was left with a few threads, so the fringe for the hufflepuff bag is a solid color, and the fringe on the scarves will be the same.  Lately I have also been looking around for some decoration ideas. I have found quite a few! There's the Hogwarts Crest that I have put on the top of my invitational letters, and used GIMP2 to turn it a nice green color to match the ink in the movies. There's the Potion Bottle Labels that I plan on using for my lollies and drink bottles, which will be easily done. I plan on getting a few of the glass water bottles from a cheapy shop and placing a label on it for drinks, and getting a few of the glass jars for the lollies.
There are the Butter beer labels which you can print off for free, and I will also be putting those on some of the water bottles, but I plan on getting some glass beer mugs and placing a label on each one of those as well, as a party favor for my guests.


I do also have my slytherin cloak finished entirely now, but as I am home by myself at the moment and would need someone to model it for me.... well it will just have to wait until some one else gets home, because I highly doubt that any one wants to see it on my puppy! There will be an awesome step by step video for the next blog so stay tuned!