Hogwarts at Ravelry

What do you get when you mix up the Harry Potter fandom, a crazy group of competitive knitters, and the awesome social media and pattern searching website that is Ravelry? You get Hogwarts at Ravelry.

Hogwarts at Ravelry is a super awesome group of knitters that are involved in a Harry Potter based friendly knitting competition. Everybody who joins the group has to apply for the Sorting process at the beginning of each rotation. From there, we are sorted into one of the four Hogwarts houses and then we can compete in the classes and other special threads of the rotation. Each of the assignments you complete can earn House Points for your house. The house with the most points at the end of the year wins and gets bragging rights. You can also earn special Chocolate Frog Cards and badges for completing fun challenges in different threads. Confused yet?

Don't worry, it is surprisingly simple once you get the hang of it. And if you pretend that you are in Hogwarts, it makes much more sense. This group has been around for a while. Long enough for them to go through one full rotation of the Harry Potter series, so I have been aware of it. I just remembered about them when they were still in the third rotation of the first year. So, I jumped in on it and registered to be sorted.

I was lucky enough to be sorted into the noble house of Slytherin to join all of my cunning and ambitious brothers and sisters. From there, my knitting commissions just took off and I have been able to fit them into the classes so far.

I finished my second set of four teeny-tiny chickens for Suzanne. They are now living quite happily with her and I was able to turn in three of the chickens into Defense against the Dark Arts class and the last chicken into the Weekly Challenge. One of the assignment challenges was to use the Verdimillious or green sparks spell to find something that was hidden using the Dark Arts. Of course, I decided that while practicing this spell, I revealed a carton of eggs and, when I opened it, tiny chickens sprung out of it! The weekly challenge dealt with the school song and one of my favorite songs when I was little was the chicken song.

The group is really fun and I find that it helps me motivate myself to knit on and finish my knitting commissions and other knitting that I want to do. Of course, the group isn't only knitters and crocheters, weavers, and spinners are encouraged to join if you think you'll have fun. And I will be talking about the classes and challenges more as time goes on, so if you are reading along you will get the flow of the group's challenges.

-MegWesley