I'm Just Wild About Harry!

AT LAST -- this Wednesday marks the premiere of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. ABC Family is celebrating with a marathon of the first four Potter movies. Today was Sorcerer's Stone, Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner of Azkaban. Tomorrow will be Goblet of Fire. The Order of Phoenix is still only available on HBO, which will be showing it multiple times on Tuesday. So I've been tuned in all day. Of course, I could have my own marathon any time I want, since I own all five DVDs. However, I'm tuning in more for the commercial breaks than the movies, since ABC is showing interviews about and excerpts from the new movie.

I've been a Harry fan since 1999. I bought the first book ostensibly for my goddaughter Emma and read it to "quality assure" it before giving it to her. Within a few chapters I decided it was mine and bought another copy for her. From then on, it became a tradition that I would buy two copies of each Harry Potter as soon as it came out: one for Emma and one for me. We would look forward feverishly to each volume. I also would reread each of the previous volumes right before the new one came out. So it makes sense that I would want to rewatch each of the movies before the new one premieres. [Right now, poor Professor Lupin has transformed into a werewolf!]

I've also loved the fact the knitting -- and especially sock knitting -- has played a large part in Harry's tales, especially the early ones. Mrs. Weasley knit a sweater for Harry's first Christmas at Hogwarts (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone) along with the one she knit for Ron. I think the knitting needles were knitting magically by themselves when Harry visited the Weasley home in Chamber of Secrets (boy, would I love to be able to do that!!). And after Harry tricked Malfoy into giving house elf Doby his freedom with a sock (Chamber of Secrets), socks became Doby's favorite article of clothing and he knitted a pair of mismatched ones for Harry as a Christmas present in Prisoner of Azkaban.

Knitting Hogwarts scarves and hats were quite the rage for a while on the KnitList and I remember many bitter denunciations when people said they were knitting "HP" items, leading to wars of words over copyright law. As a side note: it's rather interesting that I never heard of any controversy over knitting Doctor Who's scarf -- of course, he doesn't wear it in this (David Tennant) incarnation nor his previous (Christopher Eccles) one.

What's on My Needles

As for my own knitting (as opposed to Mrs. Weasley's and Doby's), I completed the seaman's scarf, but discovered I made one side two rows longer than the other. I will have to fix that before I photo it. (Note to self: do not measure and bind off one's project at 3 AM ever again!) The matching watch cap will have to wait a week or two, along with the bootie languishing in my knitting bag, since I've started the second Montavilla market tote and have only a week and a half to finish it!

Another Completed Project





KnitPicks had this wonderful spa kit using their Cotlin (fifty percent cotton / fifty percent linen) yarn. (Alas, I believe it is no longer in stock.) It provided yarn in cool pastel colors -- beige, white, pale blue, pale green, lilac -- with enough yarn to make a loofah bath mitt, an eye mask, a soap caddy, a scrubby and a traveling bag to tote them all in. The colors in the kit don't really match the colors of any of the three bathrooms in this house -- two of which were newly installed last summer. However, I really wanted the patterns so I bought the kit plus more Cotlin in appropriate colors.

Ethel has the the first floor apartment and her new bathroom is in her favorite color scheme -- black, white and red. So I made her a loofah mitt in red and black. It is knitted in linen stitch, which gives it a nice bumpy texture (for exfoliating) on one side and a smooth texture on the other. Now that Ethel has had a chance to test it out and give it thumbs up, I may make more as stocking stuffers for Christams 2009.