I'm going back to Hogwarts!

Hello!

I will admit that the title is a lie. I am not going back to Hogwarts, as I have unfortunately not yet received my acceptance letter. However, among the ranks of people at my school, I have found many who are in the same predicament. As it turns out, one of my Hogwarts-less friends' birthday is next week and I decided that I would make her a Ravenclaw scarf.

I started knitting this on Monday.

That's not very much time to make a scarf, but I am determined to do it!

As it is almost the holiday season (at Hogwarts and elsewhere), I thought I could share the not-so-secret-secret of how to make these scarves because they make awfully good presents for the magically gifted (and those who just want a striped scarf). For those of you who are like me and absolutely love the Harry Potter world, you will notice that this is a first year scarf, with large blocks of color.

So, here it is, the Hogwarts scarf pattern that I made up.

Stuff you need:

• dark blue yarn (a lot of it) 

• silver or light grey yarn (again, a lot of it, you're making a scarf)

• knitting needles (I'm using 6.5 mm, but use what is recommended for the yarn you're using)

How to do it:

1. Cast on 23 stitches in the dark blue.

2. Knit 26 rows of the blue yarn.

3. Switch to grey yarn by snipping the blue yarn (leave a 4 inch tail) and tying the grey yarn to it, then knit as usual.

4. Knit 26 rows of the grey yarn.

5. Switch back to the blue yarn in the same manner as step 3.

6. Repeat as many times as it take to get a long scarf. 

7. End in a blue stripe.

8. Knit 26 rows of the blue.

9. Cast off.

10. Weave in all the little dangly pieces of yarn.

11. Fly to Hogwarts in a magic car.

To make a Gryffindor scarf, use dark red and gold, for Hufflepuff, use yellow and black, and for Slytherin, use dark green and silver (or light grey). 

Happy knitting! Fair warning, these scarves do take a very long time to knit. The solution that I have found to that is to knit while watching your favorite movies and/or television programs. My TV show of choice has been Doctor Who, which is really not surprising at all. As for movies, I would suggest Hugo, Marley and Me, and the Avengers, as those are the movies that I have been wanting to watch lately.

Good day and all that!

The Grand News

Hello!

So as you very well know, I haven't been on very much as of late and that is for several reasons, one being school, the other being theatre and the third being that I had some big news that I wanted to share with all of you. It ended up taking longer to set up than I had thought, but now I can finally tell you!

I have been wanting to set up an Etsy shop for a very long time and now, I have at last accomplished that goal!

For those of you who don't know, Etsy.com is an online international community of people who sell handmade things. There is jewelry, furniture, journals, art... Everything you can imagine someone making is there for you to buy. It's pretty wonderful.

And now, I'm there too!

At the moment, all that I have listed are Benedict Otterbatches (made to order, so if you want one for Christmas, I would suggest ordering now), a bunny, and a polar bear. More will be made this weekend and in the coming days, but now you know!

You can see my shop by clicking on the Etsy button to the right, or by clicking here!

Happy November - what day is it? - 16th... Happy November 16th!

So I made a skirt

Hello!

Sorry for the horridly long wait between posts, I have been extraordinarily busy... for the most part.

I did make something, I just haven't had time to take proper pictures of it with my camera. In the meantime, here is a phone picture, courtesy of my mom.

I'll talk more about it later, as soon as I can take proper pictures, but I made it this weekend in between horse back riding and homework. It was a fun project, I actually didn't screw up that much. I only broke the needle on the sewing machine. Again. Why is this a recurring thing? I didn't even know you could break the needle in the sewing machine! 

Anyway, it was my first time making an item of clothing that are not pajama pants (or that one skirt that I have never worn) so I was quite proud. I had to do a bit of guessing as to the size and ended up shortening it up a lot. 

I'm not entirely sure how to wear it, seeing as it is now 0 degrees Celsius when I leave my house in the morning. I think I'll be sticking to sweaters and jeans for the moment.

I will attempt to shorten my hiatuses between posts in the future...

Have a lovely beginning of November; I'll see you all very soon with a longer post and better pictures!

-Blue Cat

A big thank you!

Hello!

So, I just hit 2000 views on this blog!

That may not seem like a lot to the bigger bloggers out there, but I haven't even had this blog for a year, so this is incredible to me.

Thank you to everyone who has visited my little corner of the Internet!

As a sign of my gratitude, here is a picture of my cat.

I imagine she thinks she's helpful. Poor dear, she't not very bright.

Happy friday!

Some earrings for some friends

Hello!

So I put my new light box to the test today, and it once again wielded wonderful results. 

I love my light box.

I'm going to a friend's house quite soon (within the next hour) and I wanted to make her and my other friends some earrings because why not? Also I missed their birthdays. 

That type of earring takes about ten minutes to make at the very, very most and if you're watching videos online at the same time, like I was. 

There are the silvery-swirly-gold ones, the moon ones and the Gryffindor ones, because my friend is a huge Harry Potter nerd (as am I) and as she must wear a uniform to school, I figured she would still be able to show her house pride by wearing her colors like this!

Blue Cat, out!

A very loud idea at the back of my mind

Hello!

I've had this idea at the back of my mind, well not really at the back, more like screaming whenever I took pictures, but I've been wanting to do this for a while.

I wanted to build a light box.

So I built a light box.

Using this link here I knew how I wanted to make it. I scavenged the materials from here and there (seriously, the cardboard box was the hardest to find) and today I finally had everything I needed, including time.

Here's the best part: my dad just got a lot of used professional lights and I get to use them! So that's my lighting (I would have used some of the brighter lamps we have if I hadn't had the pro ones) and now, all that remained was to make it.

I kid you not, my entire day has been building up to this. I had a chemistry test to study for (which I did for a very long time) and math exercises (which didn't take as long as I thought) and once those were done, I could start! I even used an Exacto knife for the second time ever, which was a little worrying because I like all my fingers where they are.

But enough chit chat and suspense-building: look!

I took a few pictures of my little bear and then my brother came in and I took pictures of his Legos for him. I'm still playing around with the zoom and the background, but that's details. 

Just like all the cardboard that is covering my bedroom floor right now.

Details.

My room is a mess.

But what you should really take away from this post is that it is currently pitch-black outside my window and I still managed to take decent pictures! This is my revenge on horrible winter light.

Have a wonderful day/night/whatever!

My pride and joy

Hello!

Okay, so to make up for my utter lack of doing anything creative-sewing-related in the last few weeks (that's not entirely true, I have been doing creative things, just not sewing and/or knitting ones. I've been costuming!) I made something really, really cool.

Something that you may not know about me is that I love giving gifts to people, which is why I like birthdays and Christmas. The other day was my friend's birthday and I wanted to give her something really, really brilliant.

I started drawing, planning, thinking. It actually only took about five minutes to design the whole thing. The problem was, I had nearly none of the materials I needed, so yesterday, mom and I raided the fabric-craft store and finally, I could start.

I drew a pretty picture last weekend, and now, it has come to life. I think that people should sketch their ideas simply because once they're finished, it's amazing to see how one idea became a drawing became a tangible... thing.

I have no idea what his name is, but let me explain the story behind the design. My friend is a huge fan of many of the same things as I am. So, I decided to make a doll that would be filled with references. 

The blue scarf is from Sherlock BBC. 

The shoes and trench coat are from the Tenth doctor in Doctor Who, and the purple shirt and black pants are from the Ninth Doctor.

The fluffy black hair is loosely based on some of the YouTubers that we both watch, but also because many characters in all of the series have black hair for some reason.

Now, as for the materials. The shirt and face are made from knit jersey fabric. Here are the pros and cons. 

Pros: Looks really cool, and the one I used for the face was the only fabric that was the right color.

Cons: Terrible to sew, doesn't stuff well (it gets all lumpy) and most especially, something that you can't really see here, it rips. I was putting in the eyes which ended up with two rips in the fabric. I sort of fixed it, but if I ever try this again, I will find another way of putting in the eyes.

I made the coat from felt, the scarf from a scrap of fleece and the pants and shirt from cotton. The hair, however, is one of the coolest parts of the doll. It's made from fake fur, which was a brilliant idea of mine (I'm kidding, although it was my idea). The fake fur was a stab in the dark because I had absolutely no idea how I was going to pull it off. Eventually, I made a sort of hat in the shape of a fringe and a full head of hair for the back and sewed it on as best as I could. Fake fur is one of the worst thing to sew as soon as it exceeds a quarter of an inch in length. 

So there you go! My insane weekend project! I made this while watching Doctor Who. I may or may not have watched half an entire season. Best Sunday ever! I'm giving this to my friend tomorrow, I really hope she likes it, because I am ridiculously proud of it.

Have a great week and I will attempt (that is not a guarantee) to post more often.