My Harry Potter Quilt: A Place to Start

Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,
Teach us something please,
Whether we be old and bald
Or young with scabby knees,
Our heads could do with filling
With some interesting stuff,
For now they're bare and full of air,
Dead flies and bits of fluff,
So teach us things worth knowing,
Bring back what we've forgot,
Just do your best, we'll do the rest,
And learn until our brains all rot.

-Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, page 128


Click on the image for a closer look.

Harry Potter was my first book obsession. I went to the midnight release for books 5, 6 and 7 (didn't start reading until the first HP movie came out and didn't even like the 1st book until I saw the movie -- then I had to go back and re-read it and went on with 2 through 4). I made a Professor McGonagall costume and have worn it for Halloween for 5 years at least, plus to at least one book release. I was dead set against reading the Twilight books because everyone said, "it's the next Harry Potter." I thought they meant the books were to replace HP. What they should have been saying is "it's the next phenomenon as big as Harry Potter."

One day last week while I was procrastinating taking down the Christmas tree, I started to browse the Harry Potter patterns on SewHooked. I also found some great patterns on the Guest Designer page there and on Cat's Etsy Shop. From Sewhooked, I found two personal blogs which had lots of great ideas (and hopefully patterns soon to follow). Michelle's blog had lots of great portrait blocks of the characters. From Connie's blog I got the idea for my layout (I borrowed and tweaked one of her ideas) and some other great patterns.

I've been thinking about making a Harry Potter Quilt for a while and the layout on Connie's blog was just the spark I needed to get me started with a plan. Of course, this will happen AFTER I finish my twin Twilight quilts. I absolutely can't start another big project before I get that finished. If you scroll down about ⅓ of the way on Connie's blog, you'll see where I took the layout from. Each tower has scenes from one book (Year 1 on the left and moving to the right to Year 7). The tower above Harry Potter in the castle entrance has the four house crests on it. Both my kids want a Harry Potter quilt.

A few of the blocks I want to do are not in existence yet. I'm either going to have to beg and bribe some of the experienced designers to make patterns for me, or try it myself for the Hogwart's Express (bottom left corner), the Sword of Gryffindor (Book 2), the Prophecy (Book 5), The White Tomb (Book 6), Hufflepuff's Cup (Book 7) and Ravenclaw's Diadem (Book 7). Sirius Black (Book 2), Ginny Weasley (Book 6) and Voldemort and Naigini (Book 7) are on Michelle's personal blog and she hasn't published patterns for them. She also has James Potter (and a few others) that she hasn't posted patterns for, which I'm wracking my brains to figure out a way to include them, because I really need to include James and Lily Potter (she did her also, and that pattern is available). Connie has the Nimbus 2000 with a Snitch (top left corner) and the most amazing Mirror of Erised (Book 1) on her blog, but they aren't finished yet. So, I have two options: Option 1: Be patient while they finish their work because I have most of a Twilight quilt to finish OR Option 2: Get a live journal account and bombard them with compliments, comments and beg and bribe them to finish their patterns.

As for making a HP quilt for each of my kids, I'm not. This is for me. I know, I should probably make them each one as well as one for me. YIKES! Three quilts! And don't think it hasn't entered my mind to make one for JKR as well. There are about 90 blocks that I would like to include in the quilt. But as it stands now, there are 70 blocks in the design. I'm pretty sure I'm going to add one more row in each column making it 78 blocks. I counted, and my Twilight quilt has the equivalent of 55 blocks (some blocks, like Isle Esme, take up three spots, and the two rows of trees on top and bottom are worth 5 blocks each), so I'm making 110 blocks in total (two quilts, yes, I'm crazy.) for the Twilight quilt. And paper piecing blocks are very time consuming. So, the HP Quilt is a HUGE undertaking, and making four of them is absolutely insane. For now, I'm filing this away in the 'think about it' drawer. I have lots of other projects already in the works. But this one is a fun one to look forward to.