Anyone who's a Harry Potter fanatic knows there is a lot of
knitting in the books. I made a scarf modeled after the one in the movie,
and a hat to match it; several members of the Knitlist and KnitU are also
working on similar projects.
I've created a forum for discussion about
knitting in Harry Potter, you can access it here!
Also there is a discussion list for knitting in
Harry Potter, check it out here!
This page is meant to help those of us who are designing sweaters and scarves to
match the movie. All of these pictures came from www.hpgalleries.com.
These pictures are ALL copyright Warner Brothers. (some are also copyrighted
by their respective photographers) I've cropped some of them to show only
the relevant part of the screen shot.
I've started a compilation of online Harry
Potter-inspired patterns. Check it out here!
It's plain to see that this is a stocking
stitch scarf, probably a tube scarf. It looks like the scarf is
pretty wide, and the stripes are not as tall as they are wide. So if you
are making your scarf 6" wide, make the stripes about 4" tall to
keep it in proportion. There is also fringe in alternating color
bunches, about the length of a color stripe. I'm estimating the
length of this scarf as pretty long, because you can see that Hermione has
hers tied around her neck loosely, and it still reaches to about her
waist.
There has been some discussion online
about whether these scarves are the wrong colors. People are saying that
they are "maroon and yellow" when Gryffindor's colors
are "scarlet and gold." I'd like to point out the difference in
color values even between the above photos, which were all taken of the
same scarves. Everyone must keep in mind that different screens display
colors differently, and so do different media types! Make
the scarf the color you think it should be, don't try to match what you
see on your screen, because when you see on the big screen, and when you
get it on video and watch it on the little screen, you're sure to see a
different color!
These are my takes on scarlet vs. maroon:
Scarlet?
Maroon?
I think everyone's making way too big a
deal about this. Pick the color you want and tell yourself that it's
the right color for you! Or better yet, let the person you're making
the scarf for pick it, so they won't be able to complain. =) I
used "burgundy" and "gold" Red Heart yarn, as per my
boyfriends' requests. Burgundy is closer to maroon than to scarlet, but
Matt did not like the scarlet that was available in RH.
Something else to think about:
scarlet and gold are the colors for Gryffindor House, so you could easily
use the colors from another house if you wanted to represent those houses
instead. Those colors would be:
Ravenclaw: Blue and Bronze Hufflepuff: Yellow and Black Slytherin: Green and Silver
Note to knitters: These scarves are NEVER
mentioned in the books. They are a new thing made for the
movie. So if you want to make something more authentic, you might
prefer to make Dobby socks (mismatched socks in crazy patterns) or a
scarlet sweater with a gold lion on it, which Mrs. Weasley gives to Harry
for a Christmas present in the third book.
Update 10/30/01: I found a picture online, drawn by
the original illustrator for the HP series, and it shows Harry wearing a
striped scarf, standing in front of the Hogwarts Express! So there IS a
reason for the scarf's existence! It still isn't mentioned in the book,
but at least we know it was not made up for the movie version! That makes
me happy! (in case you couldn't tell!) BUT! This picture seems to support
the idea that the colors in the movie are wrong, the red in his scarf
would never be called maroon, though it is certainly not what I would call
scarlet. Oh well!
Here is the picture (copyright Thomas
Taylor):
Update 11/28/01:
After watching the movie, I have a different take on these scarves. They are
DEFINITELY tube scarves. They are also much MUCH wider than we had previously
thought, probably at LEAST 12" across. The students receive these
scarves the first night when they arrive at school, and in the movie you can
see the scarves laying over the backs of chairs -- the scarves take up most
of the chair backs! That is how wide they are when they are flat.
These may be the most recognizable
sweater once the movie comes out, it is the sweater worn by the Gryffindor
Quidditch team under their Quidditch robes (which are scarlet on the
outside and gold on the inside). The sweaters appear to be either stocking
stitch or a 2x2 rib, but since they were made on knitting machines instead
of by hand, the ribbing is different. A 2x2 rib would pull in tightly,
which is not how these sweaters lay. Some ideas for knitting this sweater
by hand would be to use shaker or double knitting to get the ribbed
effect, or to just ignore the ribbing and knit it plain. You can see a
detail of the collar on the top picture, which shows us that these are
crew neck sweaters with the gold detailing at the base of the
neckline. We can probably assume that the wrists also have the same
detail. (note that in another picture, the bottom of the sweater is
visible and there in NOT a gold stripe at the bottom, which is not fitted
but lays fairly straight) The stripe on the chest is wider than a typical
striped sweater (the ones which were so in style 2 seasons ago), and is
also placed lower to allow the space for the house badge. These are drop
shoulder sweaters but that detail probably isn't too important to
non-knitters.
If I were making this sweater, I'd make
it top down in order to determine the spacing. For the badge, you can go
to any Warner Brothers store and buy something with the badge on it, then
cut the badge out and sew it on (thanks to Marion from the KnitList for
that idea!). I'd start from the neck, knit enough space for the badge,
then start the gold stripe, making it about 5" wide. That is probably
the hardest part of this sweater, any old pattern would work!
Another Note: This sweater is also not
mentioned specifically in the books, which only mention
"uniforms" and "robes" when describing Quidditch
clothing. They do look great, though! And we can assume that the
other houses have the same sweaters, in their own colors. There are no
stills as of yet of the other houses' quidditch players, so we can only
guess what those uniforms would look like.
Under their school robes, the students
all seem to be wearing school-colored ties and gray sweaters with
school-color detailing. This would be a really easy sweater to make, it is
probably all stocking stitch and drop shouldered. And actually, this would
probably be a great sweater to buy store bought, and then add the color
details. All you have to do is buy a gray v-neck sweater at the
store, then duplicate stitch scarlet and gold stripes around the neckline!
(and maybe around the wrists, too. Though not at the very edge of the
wrists, as we can see them and they're gray) Talk
about a last-minute gift. This might also be a good thing to make if you
don't want to be screaming "Harry Potter Fan!" -- only true fans
will even notice you're wearing something HP related.
Update 11/28/01:
After seeing the movie, I noticed that ALL the students wear this uniform.
Each house has its colors on the edge of the sweaters and on the ties. The
best part of this is that when the new students arrive, they are wearing
PLAIN gray sweaters and plain ties! That was a great detail that they
added to the movie. When the students enter the hall to be sorted, their
sweaters are still plain, and after they are sorted the sweaters stay
plain, but the next day the colors are there! Pretty cool. It's not clear
whether they change magically (which wouldn't fit too well with other
things in the book, such as Ron's ugly dress robes in book 4), or if
they're given new sweaters and ties along with their scarves and other
school-color stuff that they receive that first night.
Harry seems to be wearing this sweater in
a long scene during the movie. At first I thought this might be the
sweater that Mrs. Weasley makes for him as a Christmas present, but then I
realized that her sweater was "emerald green." So this may just
be a random sweater that he has, though that doesn't seem to fit in with
the story line, which specifies that the Dursleys only give him Dudley's
old clothes, which are always 4 times too big for Harry. Since this sweater
clearly fits him, and does not resemble a uniform of any kind, it remains
a mystery where he got it and why.
Of course, it is always possible that the
movie makers have changed Mrs. Weasley's gift sweater's color to scarlet
to match his House. If this is Mrs. Weasley's sweater, then it might be
fun to make! This is also a drop-shoulder crew neck, only this time it has
cables running vertically. It looks like this sweater was also machine
made (big surprise there), and it looks like pretty fine weight yarn. The
cables are simple cables, probably 3x3 or something, with a few purl
stitches to edge them, and the same amount of knit stitches between the
cables. The cables also continue down the sleeves. There is ribbing at the
waist and wrists, but the neckline is fairly loose/wide. This also would
be easy to make, and is probably just as easy to find for sale at any
store. Most people probably won't recognize it as being HP related,
though, so it may not be worth the trouble. =)
Update 11/28/01:
After watching the movie, it seems that this sweater was purchased by
Harry with the money he got out of Gringott's. He also purchased 2 other
sweaters EXACTLY like this one, one in blue and one in green. This red
sweater is the one he wears at the end of the movie when he's saving the
Sorcerer's Stone from Quirrel/You-know-who.
In mid-October, this picture was added to the
hpgalleries's movie gallery, with the caption, "Harry in his Weasley
Sweater." I don't know what to make of this, because we know for a fact
from the book, that he received an "emerald green" sweater (no
mention of the letter H) for Christmas from Mrs. Weasley. This is clearly
blue, with a gold H on it, and just like the red sweater above, seems to fit
him well enough, and therefore is not a hand-me-down from Dudley (the
"h" pretty much rules out a hand-me-down anyway.) I have no idea
what is going on here, seems the movie is changing pretty significant
things!
Again this is a drop-shouldered sweater, done
in splain stocking stitch, with a loose crew neck. This is another perfect
candidate for buying from the store and altering, though I personally would
NOT make this sweater, as it does not fit into the book at all. Though I
suppose we should wait and see the actual movie before jumping to any
conclusions.
Update 11/28/01:
After having watched the movie, this sweater is NOT IN IT. It is clearly
something that was cut out of the movie for the sake of keeping it short
enough. There were over 4 hours of tape for this movie, which got cut down
to 2.5 hours, so it's no surprise that there are entire scenes that aren't
in the final cut. I am guessing that this shot of Harry is of him sitting in
front of the mirror that shows him his parents. I do believe that this is
the movie version of Harry's Weasley sweater, and I'm still disappointed
with that. It seems, however, that these sweaters may be popping up
everywhere because there is at least one site online that is selling them,
we may be seeing them on all the little kids. Personally, I hope not.
As shared on the KnitU list, the company that
provided the Weasley sweaters has a website. They are selling them! Knitters
can definitely use their pictures for details/inspiration if you're trying
to replicate one of them. Here is the link:
This is a terrible picture, I know, and I'm
sorry about it. =) It's the only one I could find online that shows what
the boys' Weasley sweaters look like. In the movie version, Ron's sweater
is the right color (yay!). However, the book makes a point to mention that
Ron's sweater did NOT have an R on it, only Percy's, George's, and Fred's
sweaters had their letters on it.
All of the Weasley sweaters are done in a
flecked type yarn (this one is burgundy with grayish/white flecks, while
Fred and George's are blue with flecks), and they all have this strange
wide neck. My theory is that the neckline is supposed to be representative
of Mrs. Weasley "lumpy" sweater production, as described in the
books. The sweaters all seem to be baggy, also, with the drop sleeves
being very low on the arm. The letters are about as wide as they are tall
and resemble a Times New Roman typeface (though it is NOT, as far as I can
tell, that exact typeface).
Check out Pride
and Joy to see more examples of Weasley sweaters in
different sizes.