Sunday, April 29, 2007

HSKS Questionnaire

Please make sure that this questionnaire is posted on your blogs by Tuesday, May 1st!! House points will be awarded.

1. What Hogwarts house have you been sorted into?

2. List your three favorite double-point needle brands, including size and length.

3. Would you like to try a new brand needle? If so, which brand? Size? Length?

4. If you are a RAVENCLAW, do you prefer the colors in the film or the book? Do you have a strong preference?

5. If your pal decides to send candies or chocolates are there any that you don't like?

6. What are your favorite scents?

7. Do you have any allergies?

Saturday, April 28, 2007

House Points

It's that time again, ladies!! Drum roll, please!!! BUT, before I begin, it was suggested by the Hufflepuff prefect Annemarie that we should base the awarding of points on a percentage. I thought that was a fabulous idea. That way every House could have a chance at the pot whether large or small. For that suggestion, of course, I had to add 5 more points to Hufflepuff! Also, I added 5 points to each House whose prefects sent in their total points for the week. So, and extra 5 points each goes to Gryffindor and Ravenclaw. Both of Hufflepuffs prefects sent in their totals, so Hufflepuff is awarded an extra 10 points. Thank you so much, ladies :) As it is I still spent about 2 hours checking the majority of the sites for points. Hooray to those of you that have posted your trivia questions and put the HSKS logo in your side bar.

1st place - Ravenclaw (96% - earned 29/30 possible answered)

2nd place - Hufflepuff (68% - earned 13/19 possible answered)

3rd place - Gryffindor (40% - 11/27 possible answered)

4th place - Slytherin (33% - 6/18 possible answered)

All points earned so far are in 5 point increments, so it's rather easy at the moment. All I can think is I HATE math LOL and here I'm organizing a swap that is based on points!! That's okay. It's worth it.

It's late, so I will be posting the Questionnaire mid-day Sunday. Check back then and be sure to post the answers to your blogs for your partner to see!

Friday, April 27, 2007

IGNORE Swap-Bot Assginments

Okay, ladies! I should have had two seperate sign-ups so that I could seperate U.S. from the International swappers, but I didn't, so all sign-ups will have manual assignments and you will receive your parterns information via email.

All assignments will be emailed by Tuesday Pacific Standard Time.

My other delimma is the Swap-Bot ratings at the end, but I'll tackle that when I get to it.

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Quidditch Games

I just had to jump in here and spread a little of the Quidditch excitement around! :)

The Quidditch games will consist of more trivia and a little scavenger hunt. There will be three rounds of Quidditch during this swap. For each round I will need one volunteer to hide the Golden Snitch. Of course, that means that person will not be able to play during that round, but they will have two other rounds to try their luck. In order to hide the snitch you need to have a dynamic blog, meaning that you need more than one page to your blog to make it a little harder to find the snitch. See my blog as an example. Look at the navigation to the left - Witherspoon Cabin.

Each Round of Quidditch will last until the Golden Snitch is found or one week. The points schedule is below:

House Points & Prize
25 points - trivia questions answered
50 bonus points - Entire House answers trivia questions
150 points - finding the Golden Snitch

The House that earns the most points will each receive a plaque that can be displayed on their blog:
Individual Prizes
Of course, there has to be a special prize for the person that actually finds the Golden Snitch. Here is what that person will receive:

1st round (May 6th - 12th) - 1 copy of Friday Night Knitting Club and Hogwarts themed book mark

2nd round (May 20th - 26th) - 1 copy of Charmed Knits and Hogwarts themed book mark

3rd round (June 10th - 16th) - $20 worth of Hogwarts Sock yarn

Oh! I do LOVE giving prizes :) I hope you guys are excited too! If you would like to hide the Golden Snitch during one of the rounds just shoot me an email to bordeaux700 at yahoo dot com.


Another Gryffindor Jumps In!

Hi everyone!
I'm caught up in Hogwarts fever and am participating in as many sock-themed swaps that I can! I'm a proud Gryffindor and am happy to join your ranks!

And, as a little advertisement, I am expecting yarn blanks to come in this week and I'll be dyeing soon thereafter. I'm taking pre-orders now for your chosen House color and also striping pattern (evenly spaced wide stripes a la Sorcerer's Stone, trapped bars striping a la Prisoner of Azkaban, evenly spaced narrow stripes and finally regular ol' handpainted variegated) You can see my sold items and feedback here at: Cosmic Fibers, and you can convo me there or email me at dharmafey(at)verizon(dot)net.

Oh! And another little shout out for my new sock-knitting podcast, Socks in the City.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

House Points & Other Business

Hello, everyone!
It's time again to total up House Points :) Note: the points are cummulative each week.

Congratulations goes out to Ravenclaw House! They are leading the way at the moment. This is due largely because almost all of their members have the logo posted on their site. That's 5 points each!

Gryffindor - 20

Hufflepuff - 25

Ravenclaw - 45

Slytherin - 5

Prefects
Thank you to those that have volunteered to be prefects. You'll notice though that the most coveted House has no prefects at all. Come on, ladies! Some one needs to volunteer :)

Posting Logo
Some of you have posted the logo on your site, however, it would be best for you to put the logo in the sidebar for the duration of the swap and not just in a post. If you need help with that speak up.

Trivia Questions
Yes! Please post them on your blogs. The prefects will be checking your blogs weekly to see how you are racking up the points for your House.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Prefects & House Points

Good day to you!
I wanted to explain a little more about the prefects. Each House will have 4 prefects, so at most each prefect will oversee 12 swappers. Most probably prefects will over see about 8 swappers. That is with the hope that we get some Slytherins to sign up!

Prefects will check the sites of those that they are assigned to oversee once a week to see if they have earned any House points. They will total up the House points earned and let me know. Some points will be kept by the prefects and some points will be kept by me so that I can ensure honesty in reporting points.

House Points can be earned numerous ways. Continual points will be earned for swappers that have the logo displayed on their blogs and when swappers answer the trivia question at the top of the page correctly, and until you are assigned to a prefect you can email me with your trivia answers.

Just as there is a Quidditch tournament at Hogwarts there will be a modified Quidditch game here. Each House has the opportunity to win between 50 to 150 points for their house during the Quidditch game. More details on the game to come later.

All the ways that points will be earned:
5 pts - HSKS logo displayed on blog
5 pts - Weekly trivia question answered
10 pts - Weekly swap progress blog posts
20 pts - Package received by swap partner
25 to 150 pts - Quidditch

Just as each House can win points they can also lose points, so make sure that you are at least posting and displaying your logo!!

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Vendors

Those that wish to sell Hogwarts themed yarn and knitting accessories to the participants of the swap may post your advertisements here on this blog. Just let me know and I will send you an invitation to be able to post here. I will also put a link to your site in the side bar.

House Points

House points that have been awarded throughout the week will be totaled and displayed here every Sunday.

We don't have any contests going on at the moment, but there is always opportunity for House points to be awarded :) This week points have been awarded to each House for each member who has placed an hsks logo on their site. So, this is what we have so far:


5 Points





5 Points






5 Points





0 Points


Friday, April 13, 2007

Hogwarts Sock Kit Swap

Welcome to the Hogwarts Sock Kit Swap! I've recently jumped on the Hogwarts train and can't seem to get enough :) I've seen all the movies, but I've only just recently started reading and I'm up to book #3.

This is similar to the Hogwarts Sock Swap, but do not be confused. I missed sign-ups for the Sock Swap and haven't quite tackled knitting socks anyway, so I thought that I'd start a Hogwarts Sock Kit Swap.

NOTE: This is an international swap. It is my first time using Swap-bot and if I'm unable to assign partners in or near your home country then the Swap-bot assignments will need to be ignored because I will manually pair up swap partners.

You will be swapping a sock kit which will which should total an approximate $30 to $40 and include these items:

1. A handmade (by you!) kit bag in your pals House colors- this can either be knitted or sewn, but you must MAKE the bag!

2. Sock yarn in your pals house colors

3. A pair of new knitting needles

4. A stitch marker in your pals house colors - handmade or purchased

5. A sock pattern

You may feel free to add whatever little items that you choose to make your package special for your pal.

Musts: For this swap you must have a blog hosted anywhere (It does not have to be a Blogspot blog - my personal blog is a WordPress blog), and you must post in your blog four times a month - so that's 7 times during this swap. You also have to acknowledge in a blog post when you've received your package from your swap partner within 3 days of receiving it.

Before signing up for the swap you must be sorted into one of Hogwarts four houses: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw or Slytherin. Please look to the sidebar for links to the Sorting Hat.

Contests! Of course there will be House contests. To keep up with the House points I will need four prefects for each house, so be sure to let me know if you would like to volunteer for that position when you sign up. The prefects will keep totals for their house, be assigned pals to mentor, and will check on their blogs to make sure that they are posting Official Hogwarts business.

Signing up
Sign ups will be closed after the swap reaches 150 participants. When that point is reached I will post a questionnaire which all participants must post on their blogs by May 1st.

I will be using Swap-bot for this swap, so you must go to this address to join the swap - http://www.swap-bot.com/swap/show/3187

You also must email me with this information:
Name
Blog Address
Hogwarts House you've been assigned to