#cosplay issues

Because you have three options:

One is you dye your hair black, fucking up your hair, and having to deal with a constant heat source on your head

Two is buy a wig that might get ruined within a few days, but it’s better than dying of heat stroke

Or alternatively all the reasons why it was a bad idea for Aqua to decide to make one.

Half of this post is therapeutic self-pity the other is recognising the comedic value of the irony behind this project.

It all started three years ago, in 2014 when I was in London with my friend.

We took the chance to visit the creatively named ‘Harry Potter Shop at Plattform 9 ¾’ and that was when this whole story starts.

Now I wanted a hogwarts house scarf, hard to figure by th title of this post, I know, but unfortunately I cannot wear wool. Like at all. My skin is too sensitive for that. Can’t get used to it. I am constantly aware of it and it’s super scratchy. I even have problems with cashmere. Any knit I own is cotton, viscose or acrylic.

The official scarves are, unfortunately, made of 100% lamb wool.

I still wanted a scarf. Because Slytherin house pride.

I decided to make one myself. Yeah, bad idea.

I didn’t actually like to knit. When I learnt how to, I hated it, because it took forever. Crocheting is way faster. And our teacher never actually told us the interesting part about knitting.

Only about two years before deciding to make my own house scarf, I learnt there was more than one stitch to knitting and the size of the needles mattered.

I had no idea what I was doing, to put it mildly.

But I wanted that scarf. And since I couldn’t buy it (way too expensive if you cant wear it) I would have to make it.

For better or worse. (Little did I know how much worse.)

So like with any cosplay I make, I started to research. Looked up a couple of patterns, picked up what I liked, dismissed what I didn’t about them. Looked at the pictures from the official store and actually counted the stitches…

Yes, unfortunately I am quite the perfectionist.

I decided, to make it as authentic as possible, I wanted the smallest possible stitches, so I needed to use the smallest knittling needles I could find.

Which happened to be size 1,5.

If you knit you know what a monumentally stupid idea that is.

If not, let me explain: the smaller your knitting needle, the thinner the yarn you use, the smaller the individual stitch.

The slower you get anywhere while knitting.

Not ideal, if you don’t a) knit often and can knit quickly or b) actually like knitting.

My final pattern is currently something like this: 140 stitches to a row, alternating left and right stitches, (60 rows - 4 rows - 8 rows - 4 rows) x14 - 60 rows.

By my calculations it'll take 16 balls of green and two of silver.

Yikes, right?

Yet I was still detemined to do this.

So I started.

Now I have to admit, I have the attention span of a… hey, new chapter of a fanfiction I followed…

The first year I got about 55 rows (sounds like much, but really isn’t, it’s barely 13 cm) done, before I discovered a incredibly stupid and terribly obvious mistake right in the first row evidence of which had to be eliminated immediately and had to open all of it again.

The second year I managed to get past the first change of colours.

I learnt then, that yes, it’s actually important to use the same yarn.

Before then I just though it was some kind of knitting elitism. Nope, if you use 2 different yarns, you either have your oattern raised from or embossed in your scarf.

I still have to fix that, because like, heck am I going to undo a whole section of that scarf ever again.

Year three I actually got quite a bit of it done. Mainly because I was really determined to finally finish this stupid thing. I got about 5 sections done. That’s actually 380 rows. Only about 60 cm or so though.

I have learnt a couple of valiable things though:

I don't like sewing the loose threads in.

You can carry around knitting projects in ziploc bags. But the needles can and will poke holes into it and stick out.

Ebay is by far cheeper when it comes to yarn than going to the store. Also you don't have to go to the store. It gets delivered to you. You might want to order small quantities at first though. So you know what you're buying exactly. (Quality and colour)

A train ride is a good place to knit. People don't try talking to you when you knit. (Or draw for that matter.)

Tracking your progress motivates. "Wow, I did this much in only a year?"

Also with that many rows, you start living for the moments when you need a new ball of yarn or change colours , because progress!

Multitasking is possible. But not with something requiring vision. You can get a computerized voice to read the fanfiction chapter to you though. Google docs has a dictation function. You can terrorize your family by singing solely japanese songs at the top of your lungs for hours on end. Better, you can terrorize your brother's friends with your singing when he's gaming with them over skype. You practice your listening comprehension in Japanese if you try to knit while an anime is running original tone in the background.

The more you knit, the better and the faster you get.