Overboard!

Have you ever had an idea that, once it popped into your head, you just couldn't not see it through? I love it when it happens to me. Of course I only remember the very best results from these flights of fantasy, but it seems like they turn out rather well in general. A few years ago I felt so inspired by a ball of yarn and my first set of Addi Turbo needles that I designed a baby sweater. I'd never even knit a sweater of any sort, or designed anything, and had only been knitting for about a year and a half, but a week or so later there it was. Eventually I'll get around to writing that pattern up.

I participate in a game on Ravelry called the Harry Potter Knit and Crochet House Cup. Everybody is sorted into houses from the Harry Potter books and some players are professors, offering a class prompt each month and making at least a loose connection back to the Harry Potter universe. I've been playing since last September and it's really been motivational for me to get things made and finished. So this month one of the classes required that we make something that scares us and then another class focused on making the scary thing no longer scary (the tie back to HP was a boggart that transforms into the thing you fear, and that laughing at the fear made it go away). One of the students in my house has some pet rats (real pets, just to be clear) and she writes little motivational cheers starring the rats. They've gotten more and more involved, and it seems to cheer people up and get them going. So for my boggart classes I made a stuffed rat for the thing that scares me:



and a cheerleading outfit to make the rat not scary:



Because who could be afraid of a rat in a cheerleading outfit?

The rat is loosely based on Yuki the Rat, and the outfit and pompoms are improvised. (Ravelry links for the rat and the outfit)

I know that a crocheted rat in a cheerleading outfit is not how many people would choose to spend their time, yarn, and energy, but I love it. It's just something I had to do, and it makes me smile.

(Huzzah Hufflepuff!)