Cinema Knits

The first film in the Harry Potter movie franchise, HP & The Sorcerer’s Stone, is truly the golden age of Harry wearing cabled jumpers. In later films, Harry seems to be more comfortable in that modern teenage muggle staple, the hoodie, when not in his Hogwarts uniform. But, in this first film we get to see Harry sporting not one – but three – cabled sweaters. And, brave, determined, eleven-year-old Harry could not be more adorable in them. They are certainly a big step up from the oversized flannel he departed the Dursley’s house wearing.

The first sweater we see Harry wear is this navy blue one, worn while Oliver Wood teaches him all about Quidditch.

The sweater is actually a darker blue than it appears in this picture. The original photo was so dark that you couldn’t see what was going on with the cables. With the brightness increased, we can see braided diamond cables, simple twisted cables, and moss stitch on the front panel, with additional cabling on the sleeves. It’s an extremely elegant sweater!

I think this would be a great design to knit. It has enough cabling to keep things interesting, but not so many cables that the chart gives you a headache to look at. I couldn’t find a pattern for this exact sweater, but here are a few similar patterns, if you’d like to give something similar a go. Just be sure to watch out for Bludgers when wearing your finished sweater!

Svenson by Jared Flood, Honeycomb Aran by Patons, Bray by Jared Flood, 135-3 Dreams of Aran by DROPS Design, and for the wee ones, Harbour by Sarah Cooke

The second sweater we see Harry in is this lovely emerald green one. He wears this green sweater in a number of scenes in the film – when playing wizard chess with Ron, when discovering the Mirror of Erised, and lastly when visiting Hagrid’s hut, where he meets Norbert, the dragon. It’s a good sweater for dragon meeting.

I’m not going to offer any pattern suggestions for this green sweater, simply because I believe it to be the exact same pattern as perhaps Harry’s most famous sweater of all: the red cabled jumper that Harry wears when he goes past Fluffy, down through the trapdoor, to confront Quirrel and Voldemort. That’s right, this one:

Defeating dark wizards and looking good doing it. There has been a pattern written for this sweater. So, you can knit it in red, green, or whatever color you fancy.

The pattern is Harry’s Red Cable Sweater by Alison Hansel from the book Charmed Knits: Projects for For Harry Potter fans. It’s gorgeous! Unfortunately, the book is now out of print and the patterns aren’t available to purchase individually on Ravelry. There are used copies of the book out there, if you want to to give this pattern a try. Also, I know my local library system has this book, so check your local library. If anyone knows any other sources for this pattern let me know!

Leave me a comment below and tell me your favorite sweater that Harry wears in The Sorcerer’s Stone.

Next time, we’ll be taking a look at knits from my favorite sport…