Molly Weasley's Bell-Sleeved Sweater - Yes, I am Making One!

It took me more than a year but I finally finished the afghan I started when I was pregnant with William.

I've been wanting Molly Weasley's bell-sleeved sweater in the second Harry Potter movie ever since the first time I saw it.

So, I've been looking all over the internet for a pattern and I can't find one that looks right.  On most of them, the sleeve is way to baggy (the flare is supposed to start at the elbow, not the shoulder) and the shoulder sags something awful (I realize most of them were just costumes but really!) and most of them were just way too big.  The sleeves on one of them hung past the wearer's knees!

Anyway, I got the book "Charmed Knits" from the library 'cause I heard there was a pattern in there and I was sooo disappointed!  It had all of the opposite problems.  The flare began way too low and the shoulders were all puffy-looking and just weird.

And don't even get me started on the colors - why do people seem to think that the sweater was rainbow-clown colored?  I saw a lot of burnt orange and sage green; you know, seventies-upholstery colors.  Luckily, that's easy to fix.  I'll just buy decent colors.

So anyway, I decided I'd be better off just making my own pattern.  I've never made a pattern for anything more complicated than beaded socks before so this will definitely be an undertaking!

I started on it last night and in three hours, this is how much I got done:

Hubby kept complaining that I was unraveling more than I was crocheting.  (Have to get it just right, you know.)

And before you start commenting on my hypocrisy concerning the colors - I'm only using these because they are what I have on hand.  Right now I'm just making the pattern.  I didn't want to go out and buy yarn for a project that may or may not be beyond the scope of my abilities.  This will probably get completely unraveled and rolled back onto the balls when I am done.  I'd like to do it in the muted colors of the one in the movie if I can find the right yarn.  If I can't, I'll be doing it in some other combination completely. (But no rainbow-clown!)

Hopefully this project won't take a year to finish and I will keep posting updates on it.  If I am successful at coming up with a better pattern than the ones out there, I will share it here on my blog.

Korrina