Shannon bought the yarn, I knit the sweater. I think that’s a pretty good deal.

The construction is very similar to the Hogwarts sweater: bottom-up raglan, slightly fitted waist, very nearly seamless. This one has a half-assed sort of boatneck thing going on.

Honestly, I think it’s waaaaaaay to big for her, but she said she wanted it to be the same size as mine.

Next up: long, fitted cardigan (also bottom-up raglan, but this time it ain’t in the round) for my mom. It will be made of the best yarn I can possibly afford.

Well, nearly complete anyway.

I decided that I’d have to be a complete nutter to want to wear a long-sleeved shirt, alpaca sweater, wool scarf, and wool robes in California in July. So I’m stopping short of the robes and will probably still be sweltering, but at least that means the costume will be *done* once I buy a skirt.

The scarf is from everyone’s favorite pattern, you know, the knit.atypically.net PoA one. It’s worked in Cascade 220 — colorway 8993 for navy, and 9445 for the best book!Ravenclaw bronze in the world.

The tie is from wizardties.com and came in a brown paper package with a handwritten note tied on.

The sweater! Oh, the sweater. My mom got me the luscious yarn for Christmas — Classic Elite Inca Alpaca, which is so far outside my normal price range that it makes my head spin. And let me tell you, returning to my old standby, Cascade 220, after spending months working only with this lovely stuff is as disappointing as waking up from an exhilaratingly wonderful dream and realizing that you’re late for work.

But the sweater! Oh, the sweater. It’s a nearly seamless raglan, knit from the bottom up, and is based on no pattern (save the v-neck, which came from The Knitter’s Handy Book of Sweater Patterns). I took measurements from my favorite sweatshirt, did a bunch of math, added a fitted waist, and fudged my numbers like crazy to avoid decreasing 1.614 stitches every 4 rows. Came out alright, though.