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!!!

As promised!

BAGS!!!!!

and 

Scarves!!!!!

As I've said before here is pretty much what I've done since my big break. To the left we have our Gryffindor bags and scarves, and to the right we have our Slytherin set. I've decided to make two of each bag and a total of eight scarves, four in single blocks and four in stripes. These have taken aaaaages to make, but they have been totally worth it! My only problem is that when I went out and got all my yarn to make the bags I didnt notice that the sizes I got were all different, but that's alright it just means everything will be different sizes.

So here we have our scarves, made from the same yarn as the bags. Four were made of each style. The pattern for these scarves is simple, I just did a search of what styles of scarves there were and made miniature versions. They measure approximately 8 inches long and have a fringe on the bottom just like a normal scarf. There is a problem with rolling up on the edges of these, but if you use a yarn that is iron-able it is easily fixed.  There is a pattern for some double knitted book scarves that gave me the idea for this which can be found here and its free! That's always good to have.

Golden Snitch Key chain

I decided to try and make a few golden snitch key chains, only because knitting them really was making my fingers bleed. It's ok though not everything needs to be knitted, there are more than a few ways to do what you like! I went to my local craft store in the jewelery section for this little number, and let me tell you it was a little hard to find what I wanted. I ended up having to go several times and to a few different craft stores to find all the parts I needed, you wouldn't think it would be so hard... Now I ended up using some end posts which were pretty long, some silver wing charms, phone charm lanyards (the black thing in the photo) and some small golden balls. I was looking for some plain golden beads, but instead I found these very ornate balls with holes on each side just the right size for the end posts to go through. Using a pair of wire curlers I threaded the end post through the wings and the ball, curled the end around making it nice and tight and then attached the charm lanyard to the curl. To top it off it will be presented in a small silver gossamer drawstring bag, with a small note reading the line from the last movie where Harry Potter receives the golden snitch in Dumbledoor's will reading.

Coming up next: Huffellpuff Bags and Scarves!