Knit Devotion

I really enjoyed this project. I had been wanting to use this yarn I had bought a while back but couldn’t find the right thing.    I think it turned out well.  The snitch design is better in person.  Pictures don’t do it justice. Like most things, they are always better in person. 

Here’s the quiz for Potions….Let’s see how I do..

1. Name the two known Potions professors at Hogwarts during the books.
Include which book(s) each of them were professors during. (1)   Slughorn 6-7 Snape 1-5

2. Name the five pieces of equipment that a student of Potions is expected to have. (1)

      basic Potions ingredient kit
     Magic Draughts and Potions Book
     Size 2 cauldron
     scales
     vials glass
    

3. Give me the name and the person who invented the potion that is used as a remedy for the common cold. (1)   Glover Hipworth pepperup potion

4.
What does the Polyjuice potion do? Name at least four of the
ingredients. Tell me at least two of the characters who used this
potion in the books and tell me what it did to them. (2)

    Allows the person who drinks it to become a person or animal that they specifically made the potion for and only for a limited time.

      something from the person you want to become (hair, fingernails, toenails, snot)
      boomslang skin
      fluxweed
      lacewing flies

     Most well know is Ron, Harry, and Hermione who turned into Crabbe, Goyle, and a cat (Hermione)

5. What is a bezoar and what is it used for? (1)
    
      stone from a goat stomach about the size of a kidney and used as antidote to most poisons.

6. Tell me what the Amorentia potion is. What would yours smell like? (1)

    love potion
    pumpkin pie and peppermint

7.
Name three Potions ingredients that can be found in the Muggle world.
What are each of these items used for in each situation? How to Muggles
and Wizards use these things differently? (2) 

   leeches–polyjuice potion–muggle world to bleed out patients with blood diseases.

    belladonna– part of standard potion making kit–muggle world– used to be used to dilate eyes

    lovage–Confusing and befuddlement draughts– muggle world–used as culinary herb.(part of
        carrot family

8. What is your favorite Potion and why? (1)
   
    skele-grow..because I am always breaking something and it would save me alot of time and trips
   to the emergency room.
 
 
9.
There are at least two Potions which are mentioned as being illegal to
the students at Hogwarts, but they get used in the series. Which two
are these and what do they do? (2) 

   Armortentia (love potions) makes the person infatuated or deeply obsessed with the giver of the potion.
   polyjuice potion makes the person someone else (who ever you made the potion for) for a limited
   amount of time.

10. Name the three ingredients in the Draught of the Living Death. In what year do the Hogwarts students brew this potion? (2) 
    
     asphodel
     valerian roots
    sopophorous bean
  6th year

11.
We all know that Remus Lupin is a werewolf. During his time teaching at
Hogwarts, Snape makes him the wolfsbane potion to counteract some of
these nasty effects. There is one ingredient which Lupin says will
render the effects useless. What is this ingredient and why is it
important? (1)

     sugar. It’s not really important but the potion tastes nasty and “a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down”  (sorry, I just had to!!)

Extra Credit

There
are many mentions of Potions in various Muggle books. Name at least one
reference to any well-known Muggle book (either one that does not have
anything to do with magic or one that has a very archaic
view of it, so DO NOT give me a fantasy novel). What is this Potion
used for? By whom? How do Muggle views of Potions differ from our own?
Is there an ingredients list to this particular Potion? If so, what
items are necessary to make it? Are there any Potions that exist in the
wizarding world that have similar effects? If so, which one(s)? I want
at least five decent sentences.  (5)

(Go along with me on this one for just a sec)

The Joy of Cooking is my book.  Since potions are just recipes of ingredients brought together to create something else (the whole being greater than the sum of it’s parts).  You also have to follow the directions very carefully to produce what you are trying to make or else you will fail.  For instance, bakers making bread use a “magical” concoction of yeast (a living thing), water, and the” magic ingredient” sugar to make the bread rise. So I would consider the yeast concoction an  Air potion.  Without it your bread will be a rock.  Muggles use this potion although they are called recipes almost everyday.  There is one potion that is a swelling potion which is similar.

I love this quiz. I was able to do most of it off the top of my head. I just finished the DS game of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.  In that you have to make polyjuice potion and find the ingredients. It kept true to the book. It’s a great game if you are looking for something to do while you wait to pick up your kids from school and you want a break from knitting.  The other answers were from HPL: encyclopedia of potions .  This is a great source for potions and other things Harry.

Later
Curlatrix Black Slytherin House

       Our Magical Creatures homework this time was to knit a cat. Someone found this really cool cat pattern on Ravelry. It was done in just a regular yarn and it looked like an ipod cat. (which I really liked)   When I went looking through my stash for something appropriate for this project I found this yarn.  My Dd has wanted me to knit her something since she took over my owl.  So I thought the two would fit together really well.

I would like to introduce you to Tonks the cat.  She is the child of my work with transfiguration.  See I tried to transfigure my favorite baby blanket into a cat.  Didn’t quite work out. She’s pretty much all cat except when she coughs, it’s stuffing instead of hair.

Later

and your to blame.  You give love a bad name.  I heard on the radio this morning that it’s been 20 years since 1989.  Wow, I’m getting old.

Other than talking about my pending age….it’s getting close to V-day.  Even better Monday is The Chinese New Year.  I love the Asian cultures. They are so full of great stories, beautiful art work, treasures, and of course….DRAGONS!
My daughter’s school has a DRAGON Parade.  The 3rd graders make dragons out of boxes or whatever as part of learning about China. We saw a couple this morning as I was dropping her off at school.  They were very cool.  Monday is the parade and I will be there. (I will post pics after wards.)

So back to V-day.  I wanted to post some of my skirts I have made for my shop.  I have a few more that I’m working on and will post them later.

Enjoy

I remember when I was a teenager, I had a subscription to Elle Magazine. They had the numerology and astrology charts in the back. I would always read them but thought they were too broad to really mean anything.  
Our homework is to study Arithmancy and to decide if it is relevant to be studied.  Let me start of by saying I love coincidence.  I believe in Karma.  So this kind of stuff is right down my alley.  But there are some holes.

My first problem is what name do I go by.  My married name or my maiden name?  Do I use my middle name? For me, I dropped my maiden name when I got married.  So out of sheer curiosity I did all of them.  The coincidence is that most of them came out with the same numbers, maybe in different orders but still the same numbers. (There are 3 different numbers: character, heart and social) All except my original, maiden, full name.  It came out all 9′s.   That is weird and really freaky. 

My next step was to look at what each number meant.   They, all 9, could have been me.  That’s what I don’t get about numerology.  The answers are too vague.  Some were closer to me in one aspect but far from me in another. 

So my answer would be…if taught in with other classes in future telling (which they are) they could bring the fortune teller closer to guessing what will happen.  By themselves it’s just another “load”.

If you would like to try your hand at it.  (It’s really actually fun, here’s the link  )  The site has calculators so you don’t have to do the math.  It also has the meanings of each number. 

Are you curious what 9 means….. (if you know me ((I’m a Taurus)) this sounds so much like me)

9 – Represents completion and achievement to the fullest degree (as
it is the complete number, three, expressed three times). Nines dedicate
themselves to service, often as teachers, scientists, and humanitarians.
Strongly determined, they work tirelessly and are an inspiration to others.
However, they can also be arrogant and conceited when things don’t go their
way. 

Here’s my homework for Potions class.  The 1st assignment was to make a set of fingerless gloves so that our hands wouldn’t get cold mixing potions in the dungeon.  Very thoughtful of our professor.  This is my 2nd pair.  The first pair was this lovely pattern that looks like either fish scales or in my case snake skin.  But it was taking too long because I had to pay attention to the pattern.  So I put those on the back burner for now (AAAAHHHHH:( ) because we only had 2 weeks to do them.  I remembered a really cute pair on Knitty and went lookng for those and I found these. Then I went hunting in my stash. I had a cashmere/wool mix that would feel soooo good. Plus here in FL it doesn’t get that cold, so I will be able to use them and not have to give them away. 

This is a great pattern if you are interested. You can find it on Knitty.com under ” Fetching“.  They are very comfortable in that they don’t bind at the hand or at the thumb.  The instructions are clear, very easy to follow and I finished these in a day. 

Later

Tim Burton is at it again but this time with the director of Wanted (another one of my favorites). If you didn’t know, I am an Angelina Jolie FAN! I love this girl. To me she is the ultimate in cool. I took a liking to her in Hackers. I had to have a finger ring like hers. Finally found one and I wore that ring until it fell apart. I love all of her films..even the crappy ones. There’s something odd about her that I find fascinating and beautiful. But I think the thing I like most about her is she is a bad ass! There’s no one that plays tough girl like her. So Wanted is another one of my favorites. The movie is totally off the wall but good…You have to suspend you mind for 2 hours to enjoy this movie.

Back to 9.  The civilization is gone, destroyed….9 finds “people” like him and must figure out what happened and why the machines want to destroy the world.  He might be the only way civilization survives. It sounds like The Matrix and in part looks like it. But it’s got Tim’s spin on the story and you can tell in the graphics.  This should be good.  Vive Le Tim Burton!!!!

It’s time for another homework session well it’s more like a quiz. This time Ghost class.  Name the ghosts in Harry Potter. I know Headless Nick. He’s the Gryffindor ghost, played by the hilarious John Cleese. And Moaning Myrtle who is the ghost in the boys toilet.  Then, the Bloody Baron who is Slytherin’s ghost (i think, I am doing this off the top of my head) And Peeves, who could forget him. There’s a woman ghost and I think her last name is Ravenclaw.  And I think there’s a fat guy, a monk or friar probably considering this is England.

Let’s see how I do when I google “HP Ghost”….

(This is from the Wikipedia page)

• Bloody Baron
• Professor Cuthbert Binns
• Fat Friar
• Grey Lady
  

  

  The grey Lady, Ghost of Ravenclaw

• Moaning Myrtle
• Sir Nicholas of Mimsy Porpington (a.k.a. Nearly Headless Nick)
• Sir Patrick Delaney-Podmore
• Edgar Clogg (apparently this guy is only in the games…Thanks Argentia)
• A “Ragged Man Wearing Chains” (This ghost in chains could be
  the Bloody Baron, or Jacob Marley, the ghost of Ebenezer Scrooge’s dead
  partner, from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.)
• A “Knight With An Arrow Sticking Out Of His Forehead.”
  (Possibly, this is the ghost of could be Harold II [1022? - 1066]. He
  was the last Saxon king of England. He was defeated at the Battle of
  Hastings in 1066 by William the Conqueror. Harold was killed when an
  arrow pierced his eye.)
• The Wailing Widow from Kent

Those last three attended the Sir Nicholas de Mimsy Porpington’s 500th Deathday Party.

I didn’t do too bad. I had forgotten about Sir Nicholas’s deathday party.  That was a great part in the book.  I think I need to go back and reread them.

One of our professors at the Hogwarts Little Bit of Everything Swap (HLBOES) gave us an assignment to make an owl and research about our owl. Then post your findings and a picture of your owl. It was a fun assignment. I did a crochet owl. I am not particularly a crocheter. I have tried my hand at a few things but I still need more practice. But here’s my owl (obviously not the 1st pic) Sorry about the eyes. He wouldn’t stay still and when he finally did he looked right into the camera. The flash got his eyes. They are that big and beautiful!…
I would like to introduce you to Pindragon. He’s my secret owl. If I need to send a secret message or send a prank, he’s the one who does it. He can slip in and out before you know what hit you! He doesn’t deliver anything big for me, that’s done by my miniature dragon, Stormcrow.

Here’s some info about Pindragon. He’s a Tasmanian Masked owl only in minature. (I put a skrinking spell on him) His species is the largest and most powerful of all Tyto owls. He roosts with Stormcrow in the cave above my house. His screech is like a barn owl only louder and more raspy. That ‘s what I like about him. It’s fun to see him and Stormcrow play flying games. I try and join in but they are so much better than I. Wonder why.

Later
Curlatrix Black Slytherin House

I am on Ravelry. If you are a knitter and don’t know ravelry well your missing out. Here it is….Ravelry. It’s a place for the knitter and crocheter alike.
I have been in two swaps since the fall. What a blast they are. You get to know a ton of people but you spoil one person. You learn everything you can about that person through emails, stalking (I mean reading their blogs), or anything else they might do (etsy). Then at the end of the swap you send your spoilee a package with things they might like. There are monetary limits and usually a theme but there’s more fun than anything.

So on to my post…..I am a part of the Hogwarts swap. There are a ton of Hogwarts swaps on Ravelry. This one is different. We are going to try (and I think the moderators are doing a wonderful job) and do terms with our swap. This is the “first year” and we are all going to do hats as one of the first year presents. My spoiler is from Gryffindor and my spoilee is a Ravenclaw. This should be fun. I have found some interesting patterns for hats. And a really cool hat that I can change the color and put a design on it. It’s a witches hat (for the lack of a better description). I can put some stiffening agent in it to make it stand up right. But I have to make sure this is what my swapper wants.
So the term started on the 1st and we already have some assignments. One of the requirements is to post on your blog or the swap blog It’s a cool blog and should be interesting since there will be a lot of people posting to it. Also you can see what some of our assignments are.
I am off to do my first assignment. It’s an owl and you have to post some verbage about the owl.
Look for my post on that.

Later
C
p.s. we had to come up with a potter name Curlatrix Black and I’m in the Slytherin House.
(I always liked the bad boys)