Harry Potter and the Crochet Doll

A few months ago, when Pete started working with me, he was introduced to my team leader who is obsessed with Harry Potter. I had already been showing her his amazing creations from the Winnie the Pooh characters to his Christmas creations (all will be revealed soon!!)

She fell in love with the Christmas characters he had created and quickly had some from us. It was then that she piped up with a question.

"Do you think Pete could make a Harry Potter?"

"I'm sure he would be able to come up with something" I said

It was then that my mind started whirring with ideas. I wanted something different that I hadn't seen before. Sure there were loads of patterns out there already for them but I wanted to put my creativity to the test. So I added it to my endless list of projects.

This was back in October or November. It's now February. After the other projects that I had to get completed, I set to work. I knew what yarn I wanted to use but where to start.

Then it hit me! TOFT! TOFT UK, along with their amazing menagerie books, released a couple of years ago a book called 'Edward's Crochet Doll Emporium'

I bought this book as soon as it came out and have only made two dolls using it. I made a mini Pete to try it out and then for the Christmas that year I made another for my sister. I thought that this would be a perfect base to use for Harry Potter and along with some creativity for the clothes, we could make it work.

These dolls are amazing to make. You make standard legs, have a choice between standard or advanced arms, a standard body, and either a standard or advanced head. I was off, made the body, chose the advanced head to add a different colour for the hair, then the legs and finally the arms. The arms I tweaked slightly as I don't like the standard arms, and the advanced ones are so fiddly I really didn't have the patience at the time for the teeny tiny rounds!!!

Once the body parts are complete, it's the interesting part, the clothes. Well this was not an easy task!!! The good thing is the book comes with so many patterns, it is easier to use a base and make some adjustments. For Harry, I opted for a shirt and tie, trousers, shoes, robe and hat. Shoes, trousers, shirt and tie were just straight out of the book. For the tie I added some single strands of yellow yarn over and through the tie to add the Gryffindor colours.

The robe was a little more tricky and I used the doctors jacket as a base pattern. I kept measuring length against the body of the doll until I though it was long enough. I also managed to do leaning decreases on the top to add some sharp to the front which I have never done before in crochet. Very easy when you know how. If anyone wants to know how, let me know and i'll do a tutorial piece with pictures!!

The hat I had to make up as I don't have a pattern for a witches hat. Nice steady increase with a large rim to make a proper witches hat. To finish off, I use coloured yarn to embroider on the front of the robe a makeshift Hogwarts crest which was probably the hardest thing to do when working on crocheted fabric!!! The final touch was of course Harry's scar. The most important part of Harry. Well, to achieve this I split a piece of black yarn to make it thinner then embroidered it on the front of his forehead.

Overall I am so impressed with how this has come out and I gave this to her yesterday and she was thrilled by it. So much so she has even asked me for the next thing to make!!

Until next time...

Seb x