Ra Ra Ravenclaw!

This post is going to be primarily about knitting and Harry Potter, so if you're not interested in any of that, you probably ought to skip this post.

I finished my Luna scarf, which was my first project for the new term of Harry Potter Knitting / Crochet House Cup. I'm knitting (and crocheting, as you can see below) for Ravenclaw again, which is nice. I was prepared to knit for another house again, but the numbers ended up being fairly balanced and I think everyone got their first choice.


Luna Lovegood scarf. Slightly twisty, slightly itchy, but sweet

The scarf was crocheted from stash wool, which is amazing in and of itself. I ran out of the first color (the lightest) and went stash diving to dig out some more coordinated colors. The Luna scarf was an assignment from this month's Defense Against the Dark Arts class. The task was this:

This month you will be learning the Imperius Curse: Go to our Group Members Page. Close your eyes. Click on a fellow Housecupper. Make something from their projects page. (Because it’s like the other Housecupper controlling you - but there’s a certain amount of agency, because you can choose what project you do…and also because if you hate everything, you could choose another person - we totally wouldn’t know.)

So I thought the assignment was pretty cool. I clicked on a person called MOEgir198, who had already made a Luna scarf, and there you have it.

Here's a quick rundown of the rest of the classes for this month. (And the list of classes available to take has been expanded, which was nice.)

• Herbology: cleaning the greenhouse. Clean your Ravelry queue, update stash and needles lists, organize yarn stash (with before and after photos) and make a 12-month plan of at least one project per month to work on.
• Care of Magical Creatures: knit or crochet something that will keep the magical creature in your home warm. These items can also be donated if you don't happen to have any pets.
• History of Magic: knowledge. The first assignment is a 25-question quiz; the answers are to be found in the seven books of the series, as well as Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Quidditch Through the Ages, and Tales of Beedle the Bard.
• Charms: the Patronus Charm. Create either a cure for seasonal depression (i.e. something to make YOU happy) or depicts the patronus as a messenger (a messenger bag or book cover).
• Arithmancy: the magic in math. Using the site Intro to Arithmancy, obtain your three numbers of interest: Character, Heart and Social. Then craft a project that features these three numbers.

I have a few ideas so far, and I have already started on my project for Charms class. I'm knitting a beret called Urchin which is from the Fall '07 issue of Knitty. The wool I'm using is the giant cake of black wool from Heartland Fiber Co (that new LYS in town that I finally visited*).

A new thing for the winter term is OWLs (Ordinary Wizarding Levels). The assignment is to choose a class to attempt an OWL for, present your written portion, and then commence the project, which is due at the end of the term (end of March). I'm thinking of doing a project for Herbology ("students should be able to easily manipulate oversized organic creations"). My project plan is a cabled blanket, Serenity. I was also thinking about Charms, for which I'd knit a shawl. I'm still up in the air about that.

That's really all I have to say. Kudos to you if you've made it through this whole post!


*This link, coincidentally, is the same one I shared two posts ago when I mentioned the cortisone shot for my shoulder. Weird.