Last Week in the Common Room: Fun Fur Awards!

 Voter ID rules vary widely state to state and country to country. Also, at least one Claw had successfully flown without photo ID. 

The Semi-Anonymous Society of Pedants has new members!

Free wool is making its way south to be cleaned. 

Kittens! Still!

Someone is hoping to knit a brain in a couple days. 

Aglet is a fun word. 

Bear cam! Bear cam!

It's fair season! Claws are entering items and winning prizes. 

Do fiber arts skip a generation?

Last Week in the Common Room

 Tea readings continue. 

The headmistress may have accidentally challenged some 'Claws to test her office security. For science. 

Christmas things are appearing already? What is this madness?!

Kittens! Kittens!

The urge to cast on is becoming overwhelming and sometimes unavoidable. Line up those detention projects!

The Fun Fur Rankings continue, as does planning for use of said fun fur. I can't wait to see Umbridge's skirt and the life-sized, animatronic mammoth. Get on it, ladies. 

Navigating by the ocean gets complicated if the ocean is suddenly to the west instead of the east. 

Canning! Watermelon jam!

Spaghetti squash testing has begun  

Color Affection? Loki Affection?

House Cup Champions Deserve Pie!

A whole term's worth of delicious stats is so satisfying, don't you think?  One minute you're crafting One More Class right before the deadline, and the next thing you know,

RAVENCLAW WINS THE HOUSE CUP

FOR A THIRD TERM IN A ROW!!

This threepeat has some understandably impressive data to celebrate...
Here's the breakdown of our 73,580 hard-earned points!

Our May class total approached our entire Spring's Advanced Studies total, which is staggering as a true testament to our start-of-term spirit!  HMC even garnered a larger chunk of points than usual, thanks to our daring Headmistress and her mystery craft-along cowls Challenge.

Ravenclaw has become known for our last-minute turn-ins, but it's not (really) procrastination, it's our high bonus-points projects soaring in for a landing, full of yardage and awesome...

For more fantastic stats, feel free to visit this delightful post from the End of Term Feast.

We had a truly terrific term--
the Ravenclaw Tour de Force cannot be denied!!!

Final Showcase of the Spring Term!

The last month of the term was busy as people frantically finished up their Advanced Studies projects, but there was still time for incredible class projects and Quidditch goals!  Here at last is the final showcase of awesome Ravenclaw projects for the spring term!

Here are the final spring term winners of the Golden Pickle Award, given to all the wonderful standout projects!


Hreow truly impressed with a variety of projects:  a lovely pair of socks for Astronomy, a beautiful lacy cowl for Charms, and another fabulous pair of socks for Herbology:

bigsnakes knit a delightful cabled hat for Astronomy:

bchapman1017 knit a fantastic lacy shawl for Astronomy:

matematichica knit a gorgeous lace sock (paired with a minisock!) for Astronomy:

Chrissyteenychan made a marvelous quilt for Astronomy:

SadieLou had an awesome month, turning in a very cheerful hat for Astronomy, a cool zippered pouch for History of Magic, and a fabulous shawl for Potions:

knotnknit made a gorgeous pair of cabled socks for Astronomy as well as a lovely lace bordered shawl for Charms:

FeoragRuadh also had an incredible month, with a beautiful pair of lacy socks turned in to Charms, a charming reversible wrap jacket for her baby turned in to History of Magic, and a stunning pair of cabled and lacy socks turned in to Magical Literature:

LeahandtheDragon made a fantastic Tunisian crochet shawl for Charms:

intallcotton knit a pretty lacy shawl for Charms:

Topfrog spun a stunning skein of aqua yarn (from partially felted fiber!) for DADA and another gorgeous skein for Muggle Studies:

bookwoman04 spun a trio of beautifully color-coordinated skeins of yarn for DADA:

nerdyinplaid spun a spectacular skein of yarn for DADA:

LateClematis knit a charming baby sweater for Herbology:

dontpokeme311 crocheted a delightful coffee-inspired shawl for Herbology:

indigoroses made an exquisite snowflake for Herbology:

celizabethlill crocheted an adorable African flower triceratops for History of Magic:

llim folded a beautiful origami cherry blossom for History of Magic and knit a intricate lacy doily for Quidditch:

CathyCake spun a magnificent skein of squishy yarn for History of Magic:

s2five crocheted an elegant flower wrap for History of Magic and a lovely shawl for Muggle Studies:

fricknfrack made two very cool reversible knot bags for History of Magic:

SaskiaBr embroidered a splendid butterfly bookmark for History of Magic:

SarahTheEntwife knit an awesome rainbow parasol for Magical Literature:

kaypendragon made a fabulous tatted doily for Magical Literature:

knittingvortex designed and knit a spectacular lacy shawl for Magical Literature:

caranam knit a gorgeous pair of lacy socks for Muggle Studies:

winemakerssister spun some stunning skeins of yarn for Muggle Studies:

kikkitull knit a fantastic pair of colorwork mittens for Muggle Studies:

lsgarner knit a pretty sunset-inspired shawl for Muggle Studies:

Marruknits crocheted an adorable Nipsu stuffie for Quidditch:

kvaustin knit a magnificent lacy shawl for Quidditch (which also deserves a Pickle of Sanity Badge, clocking in at 1226 yards!):

keres crocheted a delicate lacy doily for Quidditch:

FilleDeFil knit a delightful colorwork hat for Quidditch:

There was one person who tried something very unique and has earned the Electric Pickle Badge, for science!


sallyinstc knit a market bag out of smelly, scratchy, stiff, squeaky garden twine for DADA (perhaps I should have awarded her a Pickle of Sanity for persevering with such an awful material):

And of course, we have the typical Ravenclaw madness, and these projects have earned the Pickle of Sanity Badge, awarded to those people who have succeeded in outrunning the Mallet of Sanity.


bribot09 crocheted a large blanket using an incredible 1530 yards of yarn!

FeoragRuadh knit a lovely shawl using an amazing 938 yards of yarn!

And so that brings the Spring term to a close!  Congratulations on all the badge winners!  And of course, congratulations to the entire house of Ravenclaw!!!  Every single person helped us in our threepeat victory!  See you again next term!

Last Week in the Common Room: wooly mammoths are here to stay

The Olympics are here! Biking! White-water canoeing! Gymnastics! Diving! Swimming!

Also, we are awarding medals for fun fur collection. Come join the competition!

How many wooly mammoths does one person need? Clearly more than one.

Tea leaves and I Ching readings continue to provide guidance.

Many Ravenclaw's have 3-4 books going at once.

Sorting! Sorting!

Visitors and hopeful transfers are popping in. Welcome, all!

Last Week in the Common Room: What do the tea leaves say?

Many Ravenclaws speak many languages. We all learn in different ways and are good at different parts of language.

Madam Chang is doing tea readings and answering questions. 

Have you ever been to Between or driven down Sample or Random?

I know a lot about Atlanta traffic now; how about you?

The proposed town of streets named after Beatles songs is delightful. 

Yarn is tax-free in some places if you plan to use it for clothing. It should be everywhere!

A new cat MAY have entered the Tower. 

Successful kitten rescue! Those faces!

Advanced Studies Spring 2016 -- Term in Review

Alright, ‘Claws. At the beginning of the term (well, okay, up until about a third of the way into it, since that’s when deadlines were), tons of us turned in proposals to be NEWT students, OWL students, and Agents for the Order of the Phoenix. As a quick reminder of the numbers (remembering that there are 175 students in The Tower), we had 13 NEWT proposals, 97 OWL proposals, 99 BROOMs, and some crazy students who decided to go for broke and do a work-study (exam-mission) program – nine deciding to attempt a NEWT and a Mission, and 66 attempting an OWL and a Mission. In case you’re wondering, that’s 131 individual Ravenclaws who attempted some kind of Advanced Study this term. 75% of the House! Wow!

As we know, though, life happens despite our desires to study or help the Order, and not everyone made it to their respective finish lines. They still earned points for the House, though! We had 14 partial Missions turned in (350 points), eleven OWL students who at least met their 50% mark (875 points), two OWL students who buckled down after missing the 50% deadline and still turned in a complete OWL (250 points), four NEWTlings who completed at least 50% of their proposals (300 points), and three who hit at least 75% (375 points). So even if you didn’t totally complete your AS this term, you still definitely worked hard and contributed!

*round of applause*

While the HoH will get the honor of bestowing the completion badges to individuals at the end of term party, we can at least tease with some numbers. We had 45 Agents complete their Missions this term, almost half! When combined with the fourteen who turned in partials, the Order had 66 Agents from Ravenclaw gathering information (with appropriate footnote annotations, naturally) and helping them out this term. We also had a whopping 59 OWL students pass their exams – I’m guessing here, but from the turn-in photos I’ve seen, I would say a vast majority earned Outstanding results, too! Twenty-six of those OWL students also worked part-time for the Order, and earned themselves a lovely PhOWL badge. Three of our NEWTlings managed to hit the mark on their exams (hey, NEWTs are HARD!) and one crazy ‘Claw (ahem, greenheron) managed to earn herself the coveted Flaming Salamander badge this term!

We also need to recognize digitaldina, Intallcotton, electronjam, and rondaletts, our latest Ravenclaw OWL Mistresses!!! Congrats, ladies!

(No fun project pics because, well, there’s a lot of truly awesome ones and I CAN’T CHOOSE and don’t know how to do a huge collage like we’d need and I can’t let this post be 100,000 scrolls of parchment! Go search for “Ravenclaw” in the turn-in threads and spend the rest of your morning – or afternoon, or evening – oohing and ahhing and adding things to your queue.)

Thank you so much Kadiddly for this fantastic look at Spring 2016 Advanced Studies!