Stitch markers - yay!

I received my Hogwarts stitchmarkers from the Yarnola chat today. They are darling! I'm thrilled - too bad I'm not working on anything that needs stitchmarkers at the moment, I'm dying to try them out. I think someone should come up with a second set. There's already the rat, as well as Trevor and McGonagall. They need Moony, Padfoot, and Prongs as well. I dunno - if you're going for weird stuff (the Dark Mark?), there could always be a dementor or Buckbeak...

I'm staring at the same four squares for the RMBR project. I have been really bad the past two days, with the amount of time I've been spending online. Someone on the Lost and Found group had the watch cap pattern I was looking for, so there are my guy's Yule-time presents. It's a really simple 5 stitch rib watch cap in super bulky yarn that was published in Real Simple magazine. I made one and promptly lost the pattern. It only took 8 hours to knit the entire cap and stitch up the side - how fast is that? I love it. So I have some future projects planned, as well as a hoodie that I started for Mr. Soli, which is currently sitting in a tote bag in the studio. I wonder if I should bother with the effort, as he doesn't seem to wear the sewn clothes I've already made for him *grrr*

I've been looking at online photos from DragonCon (aside from the ones of HottSirius and HottLupin), and checking out the costumes, trying to get inspired. It's sort of cool that people do make line for line copies of the movie costumes, but I think if I were going to go as a Hogwarts teacher, I'd want to put my own spin on it, rather than being a slave to the film version. Having said that, I found some high resolution pics of Helena Bonham Carter's sexy Ministry outfit, and I'm thinking it might be possible to do a good copy. I thought that the dress/bodice was a knit, and it looks like it's some sort of woven, almost like a flatlined burlap. Some of the swirl elements are stenciled on, and the prominent ones seem to be couched with silver thread over a silver cord, so there's a lot of dimension. The corset belt looks like the biggest pain, as it's leather, and there doesn't appear to be a busk in the center front. I can't tell what the lacing is like on the back of the costume. The lacing for the sleeves appears to be leather cord, the same as in the belt lacing. It could get a wee bit expensive. I'm guessing she's wearing Peter Fox shoes, which run about $300 a pop, but they're pretty authentic for a Victorian look. I wonder if I could pull that one off. I'd have to lose another 20 pounds before I'd feel comfortable wearing it, but I also happen to own a Phantom-type wig like all the girls wore, with cascades of curls down to my butt. I bought it in Hollywood - where else?

Hmmm...inspiration may be striking after all.