Final House Homework
I hate to admit it, but I’m glad this homework is almost over… I’m knee deep in Muggle finals right now, I’ll have to take one incomplete, and next term is shaping up to be almost as unpleasant. I’m glad next Hogwarts term isn’t until almost the end of my next Muggle one. I’ve had a great time, but because I’m getting burned out on Muggle school, I’m awfully cranky and because we ran out of money, I had to go a week without antidepressants, causing me to snap at people and be more moody than normal. To those I may have snapped at, I’m sorry. My tax refund came and I bought my medication, and I should be back to happy person soon. In the meantime, this is IT for my posting this week – I apologize, but for some reason studying needs to take precedence.
- Who loves containers of all sorts?
Esmerelda Beanswallow
- Who dyed her fingers blue?
Lavender Ackerly
- Who is related to William Shakespeare?
Celestina Cadogan
- Who wants to own an alpaca farm?
Victoria Black (and Malcolm MacCoinneach, my Slytherin boyfriend)
- Who hates carrots?
Selina Starfire
- Who is from the Muggle town of Bagshot in Surrey?
Patonga Pinkstone
- Who was searching for radishes in the winter?
Madam Ferula McGonagall
- Who got a gift certificate to a LYS from a Slytherin boy for Valentine’s Day?
Ooh! OOH!!! That would be… ME!!! I loves him so much.
- Who discovered ghosts and house elves drinking tea in the Great Hall at midnight?
Ophelia Hopkirk
- Who took an extra credit class called Muggle Fantasy Literature?
Selina Starflame
- Who attended a Muggle music convention?
Patonga Wigworthy (I am SO jealous…)
- Who taught herself to purl backwards?
Serafina Starfire
- Who sports Ravenclaw Spirit socks?
Minerva Kwikspell – wow.
- Who would like to work in Muggle Relations after graduation?
Allitrya Spelling
- Whose Mum is named Henrietta?
Avada Finch-Fletchley
My Owl Arrived!
Dear Diary,
After having a pretty horrible day yesterday and being swamped with homework again today, I’m pretty excited to report that I have gotten an owl from my spoilee today! Talk about a pick-me-up! Violet le Veela was awesome enough to note that I’m a brand new beginning knitter, so she sent three books, some self-storing scissors, a set of Knitting/Crochet Project Kards, and one of the awesome sheep tape measures (I’ve been drooling over them lately, so that’s pretty darn exciting) in addition to the COOLEST bronze bag with blue drawstrings, some seriously cool looking sock yarn (I think it’s self striping!) and some beautiful Crystal Palace bamboo needles. I’ll be posting pictures in a page on the sidebar momentarily.
Thanks, Violet!!! This is wonderful!!! Now it’ll just be hard to not start playing with the socks right away – I still have homework to do!!!
Hog-wide Schoolwork
I’m not entirely sure why all of Hogwarts has been given an assignment, but I’m excited! This is a fascinating subject – the four Triwizard champions are so fascinating to me!
Fleur Isabelle Weasley, as she is known now, was born to the Delacour family around 1977. Her father was a French wizard; not much is known about him except his appearance. Her mother, Apolline, was half veela. Fleur’s veela grandmother was the source of the veela hair contained in her 9 1/2″ rosewood wand. We don’t know much about her before her entry to become and acceptance as a Triwizard Champion in 1994 at the age of 17. At the competition, she met Bill Weasley, and eventually the two fell in love and married.
Fleur’s heritage is mostly unknown with the exception of her grandmother, who was a veela. Veela appear to be strikingly beautiful human women until they are irritated or angered, at which point they turn into rather scary looking beasts, with long scaly wings and birdlike heads. Their song can be dangerous to males, encouraging rash behavior that would likely result in death.
Fleur was the champion for Beauxbatons Academy of Magic, likely located in southeast France. Its heraldry is thus: vert two wands or in saltire each three mullets or. (Or something like that, my heraldry is a little dusty) The school itself is known for being somewhat ethereal compared to Hogwarts or Durmstrang: it is housed in a palace rather than a castle and what little is said about it indicates that from the food, to classes, to celebrations, everything is light and wispy. It seems to me to be a very feminine, girly school, and so I would most definitely not fit in there. Actually, if there was a Ravenclaw house at Durmstrang, I’d probably fit in fine, as I tend to be more of a rough and tumble, gruff sort.
I hope that’s good enough for my assignment! I’d better get back to the “real” work now!
Ravenclaw quiz #4
Of course, I look and find the house quiz waiting for me just as I’m digging out from under the mountain of other homework!!! Not complaining, mind you – this is way better.
1. What colorless and odorless potion forces the drinker to tell the truth?
Veritaserum
2. If the spell to Apparate goes wrong and leaves half of you behind, you have been what?
Splinched
3. Who wrote the Standard Books of Spells Grades 1 and 2?
Miranda Goshawk
4. What is it called when brother wands meet?
Priori Incantatem, or the Reverse Spell effect
5. Name the charm used by Ludo at the World Cup to amplify his voice.
Sonorus
6. For what is the charm Aparecium used?
To make invisible ink appear/become visible
7. What charm requires the use of a Secret-Keeper?
Fidelius
8. What color should the Strengthening Potion be?
Clear Turquoise (OoP, Chapter 15)
9. What plants are used in preparing a confusing potion?
Confusing and Beffudlement Draught? Scurvy-grass, lovage, and sneezewort
10. What condition is cured by Glumbumble?
Hysteria caused by eating Alihotsy
11. What potion makes a werewolf safe so he can keep his mind when he transforms, and what substance makes it useless?
Wolfsbane Potion, negated by Sugar
12. When does Fluxweed, an ingredient used in making Polyjuice Potion, have to be picked?
At the full moon
13. What color should a Shrinking Solution be?
Bright acid green
14. What potion is made from asphodel and wormwood?
Draught of Living Death
15. For what are Jobberknoll feathers used?
Memory Potions and Truth Serums
Quidditch ~ Round Two
Quidditch ~ Round Two
1. With whom does Ginny go to the Yule Ball?
a. Neville
2. When Harry arrives at the Burrow and Mrs. Weasley makes them all dinner the night before they leave for the Quidditch World Cup, what does her wand turn into?
a. rubber mouse
3. Since some of the sixth-year girls didn’t have any quills on them, what did they think Krum might sign their hats in?
c. lipstick
4. How old does the Quick Quotes Quill say that Rita Skeeter is?
a. 43
5. What color cloak is wormtail wearing in the Riddle house?
b. Black
6. What color is “Mad Eye” Moody’s magical eye?
d. Blue
7. What color are the robes that Rita Skeeter was wearing when Harry meets her at the Weighing of the Wands ceremony?
b. Magenta
8. What does Sirius Black tell Harry, Ron and Hermione to call him when speaking around anyone else?
b. Snuffles
9. Which team beat Wales, disqualifying them from competing for the Quidditch World Cup?
c. Uganda
10. What does Madame Maxime say is the only thing her steeds will drink?
c. single-malt whiskey
Picture Hunt
Goblet of Fire
Madam Maxime
Dragon from first challenge
Viktor Krum
Madam Pomfrey
The Chronicles of The Bag, part II
Last night, we left off designing the bag. The process didn’t take all that long, but in the making of the bag lots of things had to be changed. If I were to do it again, I would do a few things significantly differently. First, I made the main body of the bag in one piece and sewed the bottom on in two pieces to make sure that the bottom seams would be enclosed and that both the inside and outside would be pretty. Here’s the bag after the first piece of the bottom – I put interfacing all over this bag so that it would hold its shape EVERYWHERE.
I like how the bottom turned out in the long run, but the second half of that bottom took a REALLY long time. Next time I decide to do a bag like this, I’m going to make two panels for the big sides and one thin strip for the bottom and ends. Perhaps even continuing that strip up to be the longer strap.
Now, I’m going to back up a bit and tell you about the main panels. Since it needed to be pretty inside and out, I didn’t want a bunch of seams showing on the outside OR the inside. What to do? Well, since I planned to cut it twice as tall as I wanted it and just fold over, I put on the decoration and pockets before folding. Then everything got put together over the course of a few curse-filled days (stinkin’ bottom, never doing it that way again!) and the final stuff started falling into place as well.
For the final touches:
The S on one panel (not really a final touch, but worth talking about nonetheless) is some awesome scale print fabric we found. I gathered it on both sides to provide the shaping, then one side was sewn to the panel. A small strip of rolled up fleece was put inside the snake to keep it fluffy, then the other side was sewn down. Two yellow beads made the eyes!
The same fabric got used as the hanging flap to keep the bag closed when on the move (it got eyes too), a long shoulder strap and two short straps. The long strap can be folded down into the bag and fits along the ends and bottom to hide out of the way when not in use.
At this point, I thought I was done. Looking over the bag, however, I found a mysterious seam I apparently forgot to close up. As I was trying to figure out what I had done “wrong” and exploring the non-sewn seam, I realized that it was an accident that was going to be great fun to exploit rather than fix. As it happened, that little spot was the perfect place for a wand pocket (or long straight needles, if they’re small enough) so I set out to make a wand to fit the pocket. I found myself some neat instructions, put the wand together (and thanked my lucky stars I have so much “junk” around the house, because I found silver leaf wax rub that I’d use “someday”) and let it dry before putting it in the bag.
I had the bag. I had the yarn. I had the stitch markers. What about the pattern??? Well, I wasn’t sure what kind of patterns I was supposed to find, so I did a lot of searching online. I found one pattern that would work for the kind of yarn I got Penelope, but it seemed a little… well, less than inspiring. I went ahead and printed it off to send, and left my options open. Then, as fate would have it, I was looking up other patterns for myself one day and saw a pattern… THE pattern. It’s not perfect for the yarn I got Penelope, but it IS PERFECT for a Slytherin!!! I laughed with glee and set about printing it off too!
All that was left was putting the kit together! You can see finished kit pictures here. I hope you’ve enjoyed this journey as much as I did. I can’t wait for next term, and I can’t even begin to explain how excited I am that Penelope likes her kit!!!
SHE GOT IT!!!!!!!!!
She got it, she got it, she got it!!!
*sigh of relief* According to my calculations, Penelope’s package should have arrived on her doorstep on Monday, Tuesday at the latest. Imagine my nerves when it didn’t arrive and didn’t arrive… I was worried someone had accosted and stolen the owl I borrowed at school to send the package – apparently it just got lost or ran into some inclement weather. I’m not going to worry about that now, since it did manage to arrive. If I’d had to wait through this weekend, I might have pulled all my hair out!
Stay tuned for The Chronicles of The Bag. I wanted to wait until she saw her bag before sharing this journey, since a lot of it would have given away EXACTLY what I was doing. I can post pictures of the process, too!!! Hooray!!!
Almost done!
Dear Diary,
I’m almost done with my spoilee’s package. I’m waiting for some paint to dry (muah ha ha ha!) and then I’ve got a few things left on one particular extra goody, and then it’s all ready to go!
I’ve been working very hard to make a slightly different deadline: my mother is leaving to visit my sister in a few weeks, and I have a little set of gifts for my sister’s babies (they’re coming in right about a month) to send with my mother so as to save a bit on shipping. They’re not heavy, but they’ll take up more space and have to go in a bigger box than I’m wanting to pay shipping for. I’ve got the two hats done, one each for the boy and girl, and only need to finish the decoration for them. The to-be-shared blankie is progressing and not too badly at that, so I plan to take that with me tomorrow and work on it during a break between classes. I think I’ve only got about 5 squares left to make, then sewing them all together and doing the border. Whee!
Quidditch!
1. What was Harry dreaming about the first time he woke up with his scar on fire?
a. Voldemort and Wormtail plotting to kill Dumbledore
b. Voldemort and Wormtail plotting to kill him
(I think there could be an argument for both answers here…)
2. What is the problem with leprechaun gold?
a. It vanishes after a few hours
3. Why did Mad-Eye Moody turn Malfoy into a ferret?
c. Malfoy attached Harry when Harry’s back was turned
4. Sirius warns Harry to be careful around Karkaroff because he had been a Death Eater. Which one of the professors at Hogwarts, who also used to be a Death Eater, is frequently bothered by Karkaroff?
Snape (Snape… Snape… Severus Snape… Snape… Snape… Severus Snape. (DUMBLEDORE!)) sorry, couldn’t help myself.
5. Voldemort could have used the blood from any foe to make the potion that revived him work, but he held out for Harry’s blood. Why?
c. The special protection Harry received from his mother would also pass to Voldemort
6. How old would Frank have been on his next birthday?
d. 77
7. Amos Diggory works for?
b. The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures
8. Who shared a carriage with the three friends on the way from the train to Hogwarts?
Answer: Neville
9. What date in October did the delegates from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang arrive?
a. 30th
10. What color were Percy’s dress robes at the Yule Ball?
a. Navy Blue
Please either post the pictures to your blog or link to where the pictures can be found.Mr. Ollivander
I’m a bag lady!
Dear Diary,
I’ve been working very hard on my spoilee’s kit! I have a teensy tiny bit left to do and then it’ll be COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY READY!!! The problem, Diary, is that the teensy little bit left… well, it’s going to be a LOT harder than I originally thought. I designed the bag myself and it’s going to be awesome when it’s done, but the final touches are turning out to be an awful strain on my poor Muggle sewing machine!!! I’m determined, though, to get it done today. Once that’s done, I can start packing the bag and putting all the final touches on the KIT together. Whee!
I’ve been trying to take pictures all along the way, and it’s SO very hard not to post them! I guess I’ll have to be content to finish quickly and in the meantime post pictures of my other project, a new hat for myself! The main body is done, I just have the earflaps and tassels left to do, then it’ll be ready to wear!
Cecilia's Diary 