Sunday, September 27, 2009

Hogwarts House Cup

Hello. My name is Kristin and I am a member of the Harry Potter Knit/Crochet House Cup on Ravelry.

There, I said it. The depth of my obsession with Harry Potter-related crafting has gone public. So what is the House Cup and why is it totally nerdy, you ask? Well, just like fictional Hogwarts students compete in class to win points for their houses, so does this group of real life crafters. The game consists of a 3-month term, with 6 class assignments offered every month. You have until the end of the month to knit/crochet/spin something that fits the assignment and post a photo in order to get points for your house. At the end of the term, the house with the most points wins. It's pretty simple and lots of fun!


For example, this month's Care of Magical Creatures assignment is to 'take care of a niffler'. Basically, you can create a niffler, something for it to wear, or something shiny that it found. I made this little golden heart (pattern here), as I assume that nifflers' love of shiny objects comes from the fact that their hearts are pure gold.


In addition to the monthly classes, 'students' can also take an OWL exam, which is a big project that is started and finished within the entire three-month term. My OWL this term is the Vivian cardigan, but means I had to frog my (small) progress and restart it at the beginning of the term in order to qualify. However, making the sweater for the House Cup gives me much more incentive to finish it before the cold weather arrives.


The current term of the House Cup started on September 1st. They probably won't 'sort' more students until the next term starts in January, but everyone is welcome to play along (though you won't earn any points until you are in a house). To learn more about the House Cup, check out the Ravelry group or the blog. Also, now that my Potter obsession is really out in the open, I'm adding a 'Harry Potter' tag to the blog so you can easily find all of my Potter-related posts.

3 comments:

Elizabeth said...

I'm with you on the nerdy -- and btw, I told my mother (also a knitter) about your dissected niffler, and she laughed for a minute. A great story.

Unknown said...

Girl... If only we had known....

We totaly could have gone to the wedding (a couple months ago) a day or two early. Gone to Chi-town. Done the Harry Potter exhibit. And then some knit shops! Eh - Next time!

Kristin said...

I think about this from time to time. If only we had known at Chris' wedding, we would have not talked about yarn and HP instead of science!