Cinema Knits

Harry first meets the delightful Weasley family at King’s Cross Station as he searches for Platform 9 3/4, where his train to Hogwarts is due to depart. Six of the nine Weasley family members are present – Molly Weasley and five of her children: Percy, Fred, George, Ron, and Ginny – and each one of them is sporting a warm, woolly sweater.

Molly is such a good mom and a warm, loving person. One of the ways that her warmth and devotion are apparent in the films is that, despite their lack of money, each of her children are provided these cozy garments. This big group of siblings might not have the money of the Malfoy family, but they are each wrapped in the warmth of their mother’s love.

Let’s start with my favorite knits of the bunch, little Ginny’s purple cardigan and Molly’s fair isle cardigan and tam.

Ginny’s cardigan has some interesting color blocking going on in shades of purple and blue. Looking at the back of the sweater suggests that the mismatched stripe patterns have been created both by mismatching the stripes in seaming and using intarsia. I couldn’t find a knitting pattern quite like this one, but this cardigan is a fairly close match:

Cubist Cardigan pat 1466 by Helene Rush :

If you knit the above pattern in a color changing yarn, like Noro Kureyon or Knit Picks Chroma Worsted, you could get even more of the striped looked of Ginny’s sweater.

Ginny’s sweater immediately made me think of designer Kaffe Fassett, whose work is always colorful and frequently features intarsia. While quite different from Ginny’s cardigan, the following Fassett patterns have a similar aesthetic:

Lady of the Lake, Katja, Waterlillies Runner Stole, and #04 Dolman Pullover all by Kaffe Fassett

Next up, we have Molly’s fair isle cardigan.

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Molly’s sweater is a traditional fair isle cardigan. Fair isle is a type of stranded knitting, in which two different color yarns are knit with simultaneously in order to create a design. Fair Isle knitting originated in the Shetland Islands, north of Scotland. Molly’s sweater here features green, grey, pink, and white yarns.

The look of Molly’s sweater reminded me of the many beautiful fair isle designs of Marie Wallin. Here are a sample of a few of her many designs that are similar to Molly’s sweater.

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Clockwise from upper left: Ninnian, Vanessa, Virginia, Honeysuckle, and Chestnut – all by Marie Wallin.

Now, let’s take a look at Molly’s beret.

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Her hat is knit in honeycomb stitch with additional twisted cables. While I couldn’t find a pattern that was an exact match, I found a number of beret/tam patterns that combined stitches with lots of texture and cables, which will give a good approximation of the look of Molly’s hat.

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Stellata by D Shrewbridge, Swirl by Mandy C, Light Jig Tam by Sile Thiels, W. Aran Beret by Yoko Hatta (pattern in Japanese) , Sweet Honey Beret by Faina Goberstein (no additional cabling, but does have the honeycomb stitch), and finally 1252beret Bruno Beret by Pierrot – the big, loose cables on this one look a lot like those on Molly’s hat.

We can get through the boys’ sweaters in this scene quite quickly, as they are all simple knits. First, Percy, in his V-Neck:

This looks like a variegated yarn to me. I would knit this in something like Malabrigo Rios or Madelinetosh Tosk DK in a simple pullover pattern like one of these:

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Left to right: Wild Horses by Anne Hanson (this one does include an option to make it a V-neck like Percy’s), Helm by Amy Herzog, and #247 V Neck Pullover for Men by Diane Soucy

The twins wear matching grey, mock turtlenecks with raglan sleeves to catch the train.

Rolf by Martin Storey is an excellent pattern match:

Finally, we’ll look at Ron’s sweater. Since Ron has a jacket on, we don’t get much of a look at his sweater until he is on board the Hogwarts Express, admiring Harry’s scar and devouring sweets from the sweets trolley.

Ron is wearing a simple, ribbed sweater in navy blue. Here are a few pattern options:

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From left to right: Adirondack Pullover by Elizabeth Morrison, Rock Island Line by Jane Howorth, and Baley by Katya Frankel

That covers all the Weasleys sweaters from Platform 9 3/4. The students hop on board the Hogwarts Express – next stop in our Harry Potter knitting journey – Hogwarts!