more details....

from my gorgeous hogwarts-sock-kit you will find here.
i love everything and my pal did a glamorous job.
AND
a big THANK YOU to jenean for the idea and organisation!

A preview for my Swap Buddy

Here's a preview of your bag. Yours is the one on the left and the back looks like the one on the right. The one on the right is for my eldest daughter who just had to have one when she saw me making yours!

Lisa C in TN

Sneak a peek...

Someone from Ravenclaw stole Harry's invisibility cloak!!! GASP!

I got my swap Kit!

For a more detailed breakdown you can click the link to get to the flickr pic with all the notes, or you can go visit the post at my blog which contains more than just sock kit updates.

A great big public thank you to Jennifer for being awesome and doing a really good job with this swap. I couldn't have asked for more, and despite the fact that the exploding bon bons were a big shock when I got to the 'Exploding' center, I loved the extra goodies and I've already used them to do a couple of 2-stitch icords for my pal's bag.. which you can sneak a peek of here.

Trivia - May 27 through June 2

Who are the two people speaking in this quote and what book is it from? 5 House Points to those who post the correct answer to their blogs.

"I'm not trying to say what she did was sensible. I'm just trying to make you see how she was feeling at the time."

"You should write a book, translating mad things girls do so boys can understand them."

New Challenge - Sarah's Group Ravenclaw

Hey Y'all

There is a new challenge up on my blog. There was a lot more interest last week, so I decided to follow the same theme.

Good Luck

Something for my swap partner...

a little DPN holder just for sock needles. I like it so much I will be making one for myself next!

How about a sneak peek!

Well I thought since others were posting some sneak peeks I would post one of my own. My package was supposed to go out in the mail on monday but some delays happend you can check my blog about the delays. but here is a pic of some of what I am sending. I think my partner will really enjoy this.

sneak peek

My pal is in Gryffindor. I thought I'd send a little sneak peek at her stitch markers:

little impression of a great kit

yesterday at the meet to knit in fankfurt /germany lena surprised me with my hogwarts-sock-kit. as luck would have she was my secret pal. because i´m a little bit in hurry today i can only give you a first view of the bag. next week when i will be back from my weekend-trip to munich i will show you everything:
magical yarn, new wands to conjure new socks, fantastic stitch markers, bertie bott’s every flavor beans.....and more....
have a great weekend!

I got my package!!!!

I got my package today!!!!! I was totally jazzed and surprised because I’m just finishing up the bag for my partner, so I didn’t expect mine to get here yet. I am soooo jazzed. I sorted into Hufflepuff, but I’m not a huge fan of yellow. This bag that she made, though, is absolutely gorgeous!!! I love it!

Ansley designed the bag herself. Each side is different. There is a Hufflepuff ‘H’ on one side and a Hogwarts ‘H’ on the side that is showing. LOVE!! She designed a needle holder to go with and included a set of dpns and a crochet needle for the pesky drop stitches. In the package also came a sheep measuring tape, a notepad with a ‘J’ for Jenean on it, two bags of M&M’s which are disappearing even as I type this, adorable stitch markers (two lady bugs and an owl), yarn from Ashabee’s Creations, and the Knit Socks book! Ansley, you are an A-1 swap partner!!!! Awesome! Hearts to you!! :)

Stitch N Pitch

Yesterday, right after I let the snitch go (thank you Jenean for letting me help) I had a short amount of time before class and then... Stitch n Pitch at Dodger Stadium-- the Dodgers won! Anyhow, the night before when Jenean was looking for someone to release the snitch, I found out that she and I were both going to be at the same game!

That's Jenean on the left and me on the right, with my incredibly crazy hair. :) I linked it to a larger version... if you dare!

There was tons of knitting and I finally managed to get my hands on the yarn for the replacement bag for my partner (since my cat stole the other one) and some nice Gryffindor sock yarn in Trekking.

OWL MAIL!

Search the skies in Big Sky Country! The kit for my Hufflepuff pal is in the mail!

House Points

Time to relax again, ladies :) New trivia will not be posted until Sunday. Here are the House Points thus far:

1st Place - Gryffindor - 55%

2nd Place - Ravenclaw - 49%

3rd Place - Hufflepuff - 40%

4th Place - Slytherin - 25%

The race is really between all three of the top Houses. Hufflepuff did find the Snitch, but had low participation in the trivia and pictures. If they had higher participation we would have seen them rise even higher. Gryffindor's participation was also rather low this time around, so it is very possible to steal 1st place by either Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff during the next and last round of Quidditch!! Be ready, ladies! The last round will take place June 10th!

Congrats to Anne who is the winner of a new copy of Charmed Knits and a themed book marker!!

The Snitch has been found!

You ladies are so quick!!! Here I thought that it would take a couple of hours. To determine the winner I go by the earliest time stamped email that I receive. And the winner is . . . .

Anne Martin of Hufflepuff!!!

I will total the points for each House and display them shortly.

The Golden Snitch To Be Released Today!

Hello gals!
Just wanted to remind you all that the Golden Snitch will be released sometime today. I also wanted to let you know what you'll be looking for.

The Snitch for the last round is still out there, so make sure that you find the right one! Also, remember that once the Snitch is found the trivia will be removed from the site and the points totaled, so if you haven't had a chance to work on it you'd better do so now :)
Send me an email when you find it - bordeaux700 AT yahoo DOT com.

Blog Challenge - Sarah's Group

Hi guys

There is a new challenge on my blog for those under my prefectly gaze!

There were only 2 entrants last week, so if you didn't please have a go. It is only a bit of fun, and I could send you a prize.

Thanks

Sarah - Ravenclaw Prefect

House Points

Here we are! :) It's that time again. These are the cummulative scores for this week:

1st place - Gryffindor - 62%

2nd place - Ravenclaw - 48%

3rd place - Slytherin - 31%

4th place - Hufflepuff - 26%

The Sorting Hat Has a New Cousin

I present to you...
The Sorting Bag! My partner is in Ravenclaw, but I wanted one thing NOT to be Ravenclaw colors. Hence the Sorting Bag. Plus he's got a look this Slytherin kinda likes!

Slytherin Button

For my fellow Slytherins...

Preview

Yesterday evening I knitted a small pouch for the stichmarkers, which I "baked" on thursday ;)

I hope my pal like the stichmarkers. On the photo is just one half of them, the others show the initial of my pal and I don´t wan´t to blab myself ;)

What do you guess whats my pals house ;)

may it be for you?

hopefully my ravenclaw pal will like it - blue & bronze are hard to find and so i choosed a fabric in blue & sandy. the flowers will be outside and inside the stripes. next weekend i will visit my parents and there will be also a sewing machine to finish the bag. you can see also some stitchmarkers in bronze with blue and silver on the pearls as well as a hand-dyed skein sockyarn.
so my kit isn´t finished at all - some more goodies are missing and i´m planning that it will start the travel in 3 weeks....

Almost ready to mail too

I should have my package in the mail on Monday. I have the yarn, Just putting the finishing touches on the bag and the stitch markers are made and ready to go. Just need to go shopping around town for some Alaskan goodies to throw in there too. I am really excited about this swap. And I cant wait for you all to see whats in the box.

I FIGURED IT OUT

Ok I feel like an idoit I didn't wait for the whole screen to load to accept this invitation and yeah well anyway got my package a few days ago like two and got my yarn today from darhmafey and can't wait to send the whole package just need stitch markers and a closure for my bag now! Woot!

Almost ready to mail!

I'm so excited.. I have everything for my spoilee ready, except the yarn, which should be arriving today or tomorrow I think! I'm pumped to get it out in the mail though as my pal lives in Alaska... and I expect it may take a bit of time to get to her... Anyone else ready to mail???

Quidditch and other Hogwartly Things!

Quidditch
The Quidditch trivia will be posted to the site late Saturday night/early Sunday morning. The Snitch will be release on Tuesday, so that will give you two whole days to get those questions answered. Once I have found out that the Snitch has been found the trivia will be removed from the site and the points will be tallied.

On the weeks that Quidditch is in session there will be no weekly trivia.

FeedBlitz
Some of you may have noticed that you can sign up for FeedBlitz over to your left. With FeedBlitz you'll get daily updates when the site has been updated.

Post Here
You can now post here on this blog! I sent out invitations last Sunday and many of you have accepted, but there's still about 20 of you out there that have not. You don't have to, but I wanted you to be aware that the invitation in sitting in your inbox.

Getting Going!

I am hard at work trying to find just the right things for my swap partner. Everywhere I go I look for maroon and gold. And citrus scented things. And just the right sock pattern. The bag has to be just so. I know what I want to use to make the stitch markers, but so far I haven't found it... Luckily, I still have some time...

Hey Everybody

Thanks Jenean for the invite - it came just in time for me to make an announcement.

For all those under my prefectly eye there is a competition on my blog for HP goodies. I will be running one Challenge a week for the remaining weeks. Details of the prizes are on the blog. You should have had an email letting you know but just in case.......

Thanks

Sarah
Ravenclaw Prefect

Weekly Trivia - May 13th to 19th

Because I changed the header to this page the weekly trivia will be located in a post :) When everyone begins posting on this blog you'll have to make sure that you look a little more closely for the trivia because it may get lost amongst the other postings.

This week I will give you three trivia questions. 5 points for each question answered.
Yes, the trivia gets harder as the weeks progress.

Trivia #1
What's the name of this potion?
This potion has the colour of molten gold, and while exposed to the air, large drops will leap like goldfish above the surface without spilling.

Trivia #2
Which book is this line from?
"Harry and Cho were now too embarrassed to look at each other, let alone talk to each other; what if Ron and Hermione started going out together, then split up? Could their friendship survive it? Harry remembered the few weeks when they had not been talking to each other in third year; he had not enjoyed trying to bridge the distance between them. And then, what if they didn't split up? What if they became like Bill and Fleur, and it became excrutiatingly embarrassing to be in their presence, so that he was shut out for good?"

Trivia #3
Who utters these words?
"Oh I am glad I'm not on duty. I wouldn't fancy having to go and tell the Irish they've got to stop celebrating."

HP Goodies & Yarn

I've updated the yarn and goodies links to the left. You'll find different links that sell stitch markers, buttons, and even Bertie Botts Beans!!

I've also included a couple of links for Owl mail - send an HP e-card to your pal!

Quidditch In Detail

Check out the FAQ

First, my aplogies. I did make a rather large post concerning the Quidditch sessions; however, I failed to refer to that post again once all the sign-up frenzy was over. I must say, though, that it went quicker than I thought it would go.

Now that everyone is here and accounted for I shall attempt to explain again the rules of Quidditch. You can also find a link to your left that leads to the previous post concerning Quidditch.

The Rules:

**Rules Update**
For the next round - The trivia questions will go up on Sunday(not this Sunday, but the 20th) and will remain up until the Snitch is found. The Snitch will be released on Wednesday of that same week. This was suggested by Laura from Ravenclaw - 10 extra points for Ravenclaw!!

The Quidditch games will consist of more trivia and a little scavenger hunt. There will be two more 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. After the Snitch is found the trivia and scavenger pic information will be removed from the site! So, be sure to get your answers up before Wednesday!!
The points schedule is below:

House Points & Prize
20 points - trivia questions answered
5 points - Picture Scavenger Hunt
50 bonus points - Entire House answers trivia questions
150 points - finding the Golden Snitch

The House that earns the most points for all three rounds 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

Quidditch - Round One

The Golden Snitch Has Been Found!!!

So, sadly for some, that is the end of round one. I will post the total points earned by each house a little bit later.
Congratulations goes to Gryffindor and Nala, who will be the recepient of Friday Night Knitting.

House Points Update

I've taken total points earned and divided by total points possible for each House and these are the results!

1st Place -Gryffindor 59%
2nd Place - Ravenclaw 43%
3rd Place - Slytherin 27%
4th Place - Hufflepuff 22%

House Points

Hello! Happy Cinco de Mayo to my stateside friends!
I will post later on Sunday about the Quidditch games, but I wanted to get in here and post the House Points for the week before I head off to work tonight. A few surprises, I might add :)

1 st place - Ravenclaw - 96%

2nd place - Hufflepuff - 90%

3rd place - Slytherin - 88%

4th place - Gryffindor - 84%

I'm excited to say that many of you are showing your House colors like true Hogwarts students. There are only about 2 that are not participating in the trivia.

More on the first round of Quidditch to come!

First Prize Arrived!

Just had to share that the prize for the winner of the first round of Quidditch arrived in the mail!

Swap FAQ

Hello, ladies! Wow! It's been a while since I've done a swap and the first time with this many people :) I've done tons of smaller swaps in the past.

If you stumble upon some really cute HP swap goodies, please send me the link so that I can put it here on the site. I would love to find a few more little things that I can throw in the bag.

FAQ

Well, there are some questions floating around out there, so I thought that I would answer some of them here. If you have a question, go ahead and leave it in the comment section and then I'll update this post with the answer.

Partners - Are we sending to the same person that is sending to us?
No. Most of the partnering works like a triangle, though, there are some matches that have four to five people in them. If there are 3 people in the triangle, for example, Mary will send to Beatrice and Beatrice will send to Sandy. Sandy will then send to Mary.

Swap Packages - When do we need to send them?
Some people will be knitting their bags, so they will need time to do that. Packages need to be sent by June 21st. That does not mean that you need to wait until then! When ever your package is complete go ahead and stick it in the mail.

Quidditch Dates - When is Quidditch happening?
Go here for a better explanation.

Weekly Trivia - Where is it?
The weekly trivia question will be posted at the top of the blog right under the HSKS title on the weeks that we do not have a Quidditch session.

Assignments have been sent!

Whew!!! All assignments have been emailed. Please remember to ignore the Swap-bot assignments

Prefects - a few things have been shifted around, so I will be emailing you a new list. I have a few things to do tonight before my knitting meeting, so most likely you'll get a new list tomorrow.

If anyone did not receive an email from me concerning your partner assignment or if any other problems arise, please contact me right away - bordeaux700 (at) yahoo (dot) com.

Sign-Ups Are Now Closed!

Hello, all!
Thank you so much to all those that have joined us for this session of HSKS! I know that we are going to have a blast :)

Sign-Ups are now closed. If you've missed the deadline, but would like to join in on the second session, please visit us again at the beginning of June. We currently have 53 swappers! Yeah! If everyone keeps earning those House points I know that we'll have even more next round.

Reminder to participants!! Ignore the Swap-Bot assignments that go out! I will be working out the assignments today and will send you your partners information via email. As you know, this is my first time using Swap-bot. For the next round I will be sure to do an International and U.S. only swap.
To keep track of packages received so that we can update the Swap-bot points for each person, I will open up this blog for posting to those who register in a couple of weeks.

Percentage Points - I asked my math genius of a husband to help me figure out how to use points & provide percentages and we figured it all out :) I will add up the points that each House is earns and divide that by the total number of points that are possible for each house in order to get my percentage. Every week I will add the cumulative points and use that same process.

Points wiped clean! So, right now we are going to start with a clean slate. We'll consider the last two weeks to have been practice weeks. Now that everyone is settled into their Houses and the member numbers have stopped fluctuating, it will be much easier to keep score.
That means all prefects will need to, again, count the number of logos posted, as well as the trivia for this week, and report back to me.

Right, then! I'm excited! Right now, though, I have a dentist appointment that I must go to. When I get back I'll start the assignment process, so make sure to check your email box!!