Yarns in the Basket

This time it's not so much threads (and therefore not the X's) as the yarns that make this post special.

Note: For those of you unfamiliar with Harry Potter and the Hogwarts Houses, these may just look like scarves with interestingly paired colours (good interesting I hope!). To those of you who do know on the other hand....Feast your eyes! :D

Yay for the return of hardwood!

My current scarf - Slytherin

 I haven't, and don't plan to make a Gryffindor scarf. These scarves are for different members of my family, and Gryffindor (red and gold for those who are wondering) doesn't fit nor suit colourwise anyone in the bunch! My Mother is getting the Slytherin scarf as a present for Yule, though I started it a while ago. During the renovations of my old room and the move to our new house, what I had done was misplaced until now. I'm knitting like crazy to get it done in time!

Call me skinny, but that's ridiculously wide

LONNGGG scarves a bonus!

 My Father's scarf is Ravenclaw. This one remains without tassels at personal request, but the patterns have the scarves finished with alternating tassels of the colours used - for instance, the Slytherin scarf will have alternating green and silver tassels. I went with the 'book' colours for Ravenclaw, rather than the 'movie' colours; blue and bronze, rather than blue and white. I suppose the latter is more recognizable as Ravenclaw, but being rather a fan of the books I stuck with the original!

My personal scarf and the first of the bunch is Hufflepuff. I changed the tasseling to just black, instead of yellow and black, and ta-da! Hogwarts scarves.

Now, for the average person in an average town with no kids in the band or football teams, this is not the scarf for you. As you've seen with the previous photos, these scarves are ridiculously enormous - more fitting for Hagrid than Harry! They're nearly as wide as my torso, and even without tassels it falls below my knee. For someone six foot tall, that's a long scarf. The pattern calls for around 14 sets of stripes, and that's just too long for many people intending to wear these scarves.

The length you can deal with - looping it up, making interesting knots, etc. But they're just so wide! If you made them shorter, they'd function exceptionally well as shawls. They cover from my shoulder to my elbow, and can completely cover my head like a hood with extra to spare. To rectify this problem with the last of the scarves - the Slytherin one - I cut the number of stitches cast on by about half (going from 93 stitches, to 27). They're stitched on a circular needle set, so these scarves will get you warm in a hurry.

Why the mention of kids in band or on the football team? Anyone who's attended a football game in the fall and winter knows that those 'benches' get darn cold and stay cold, as well as being seriously uncomfortable. You've no choice - you have to stay put for the duration of the game (or at least until halftime). What do you do? Get one of these ridiculously long shawl-scarves out! Then you can have them as a blanket over the bleachers and wrap yourself and three others in warmth and comfort!

Though we love them for those cuddly reasons, the Slytherin scarf is definitely going to be much shorter, and not just for the time constraints. I'm just a little taller than my Mother, so I'm using myself as a measuring stick. I'll stop after I hit around my waist, and then tassel it. With it being not nearly so wide, it'll be perfect, both for her, and the rest of the population without giant's blood in their ancestry.

Cheers!