Harry Potter Sweater with hickups....

I had a bad conscience - I started this Harry Potter sweater for DS at the beginning of last year. he didn't like the normal coloured HP sweaters with the letter or stripes much, no, he wanted something special! one with hogwarts on it and Dumbledore too! well, I don't mind a bit of a challenge in knitting, so I got to work. he really liked the picture of Dumbledore on the back of the first paperback... I scanned it and used the grid foil I uploaded from the internet - for picture sweaters. the colours are - well, strong (not to say garish:))! but wizards do seem to wear more colourful stuff - just look at Mrs Weasley (ok, knitting for Snape might give eye problems - or death from boredom!). I bought 15 different colours according to the pictures on the book - from a german company (HWF) - and started to knit in rather fine cotton in dark blue - as the rest is colourful enough. only, after a little while a project for a birthday came right in between. then another one and so on.... when I finished the cushions I had the feeling that I should really clean out my "corner" - and out came HP! slightly dusty and messed up (no wonder, with all those colours in one row...) - and rather accusing me of neglect! I cleaned it up and changed the painted plastic chart into a readable chart on the cross stitch programme - and have been knitting for a week on it now! it's growing quite well - given the fact, that it is only needle size 2 mm. DS is all excited and checking on progress every few minutes.... only, yesterday he told me that he doesn't really fancy "hogwarts by night" for the back anymore:(( after a lot of discussion to and fro we have decided on not doing the castle (phh, that's a relief, would have been even more work!), but to use the silvery grey for a very big full moon - with a big fat black shaggy Sirius dog in the middle! seems to be much easier and of course, he loves dogs - so why not. good thing that I didn't do the chart for the back yet:))

the one downside with patterns like this (apart from changing colour every 5 stitches or so) is the cleaning up of all the threads.... I started to do a bit yesterday, but it is just so boring! look at the mess..... then I had a sudden bout of madness this morning and didn't stop until all the threads were done up nicely! puh, it looks much better on the front too, as the stitches are more even now and the angora/silk thread I use for dumbie's hair and beard doesn't get entangled with everything else anymore - so I am looking forward to a bit more knitting later - as the rain is pouring down in buckets anyway!

I might start spinning some black/grey alpaca next then - for "Sirius" - and hope that the sweater will be ready for this Halloween at least:) Stefan was hoping to wear it to the 5th film in cinema - but I doubt I'll manage all of this until mid-july!