Last Week in the Common Room: Goals for 2018!

Very Ravenclaw Christmas carols

Having to move houses stinks but there are some nomadic 'Claws!

 

Pets vs Christmas trees

How do you organize your circulars? And needle recommendations

Christmas in the Tower with some non traditional tree decorations!

Decluttering goals and other goals for 2018

Relatives giving less than desirable yarn and how to use it up

The danger of scissors and some scissor superstitions

Is yarn a consumable? Is fiber?

Cold 'Claws = Coffee loving 'Claws

watercolors, kuspuks and shelf stable/instant bacon

Some people missed sorting!!!

Gaming disorder possibly being added to the mental health list.

Would freezing fiber make it better or worse to work with?

Nail polish stash and “swatching it”

Star Trek 'Claws!

Non hexi or scrap blanket pattern recommendations for mini skeins

Rituals or good luck charms for the next year!

New Year's/New Year's Eve weddings

Advanced Studies Update: December Newtlings

While the rest of us took a month off, 7 courageous NEWTlings set off on journeys to investigate many different branches of study. Let's take a closer look!

For all projects, click on the student’s name to see the proposal.

TwistedSticherFGE is attempting to do a spin to knit garment by spinning the yarn for a hitofude and then knitting it! She is combining Astronomy as she studies Saturn's rings and the light lacy yarn for Charms. She has chosen some fiber that will represent Saturn's rings and will spin 12 oz of Polworth into a 2 ply light fingering weight yarn and then use it to knit the hitofude. The colors that she chose to represent Saturn's rings are absolutely gorgeous!

Mrswingnut is going to be valiantly fighting against the cruciatus curse in her studies of Defense against the Dark Arts by consulting her dreams through divination! She will be knitting the challenging Butterfly/Papillon and also Roiling Waters. Making these two patterns are like a dream come true to her. They are similar but very challenging and I can't wait to see them come together!

Cn32 is next with her study of Herbology and Muggle Studies. She will be making a hitofude out of her own handspun, using up as much yarn as she can out of her 2,000 yards. She will also be studying botany by making floral squares. 9 squares will be 9 inches across and one will be bigger to make up a blanket of at least 4 feet square with a border of her own handspun!

SaskiaBr is combining Potions and Muggle Studies to make a beautiful pastel Aphrodite, a big Find Your Fade and as many accessories as she needs to use up about 3,000 yards. She will be using greys and neutrals as the base colors of her Aphrodite and combine the pinks (and maybe whites) to make the stripes. Her Fade will go from pinks to white to grey. If needed, she will make legwarmers, a pair of colorwork mittens or a hat to make up the yardage. These coordinating pastel creations will be amazing when they are finished!

Caranam will be combining Muggles Studies and Potions by making two adult sweaters, Cabeladabra and Enchanted Mesa. Cabeladabra has many complicated cables in it, as you might have guessed from the title and Enchanted Mesa has well over 3 colors in it. Caranam will be adding a delightful twist by using colors from a yarn advent calendar (yes you did hear that right and we're all very, very jealous) to make up Enchanted Mesa.

S2five will be combining Ancient Runes and History of Magic to make a beautiful colorwork cowl possibly worn by Durmstrang students in the mid 1800's. It will study colorwork from this time period through 18 complex charts and over 1800 yards of a very beautiful cream and tonal grey. This is only her third stranded colorwork pattern!

Keres is combining Runes and Potions in a NEWT to make a gorgeous multicolored shawl. It will be knit from 10 charts and she will use both intarsia and stranded colorwork to achieve her final product. She will be using a staggering 2 or 3 dozen colors in this shawl! She will also be using two new to her techniques of splicing and trapping to complete this NEWT!

What's Happening This Week: December 25 - 31

Remembrall Sign ups

         

Break Month Activities --

          Secret Snowflakes -- Sign ups now closed

          The Concierge Carriage

          The Library Car

          The Engineer’s Compartment

          The Luxury Spa Car

          Hufflepuff Diagon Alley Party -- The Leaky Cauldron

          Slytherin -- Advent Sock Along

Big Eagle Applications open until MIDNIGHT POT on 12/28
  

2018 stashdown thread

Prjónfesta!

Last Week in the Common Room: #cookiepocalypse2017

How many cookies will be in the cookie apocalypse this year?

A following on twitter #cookiepocalypse2017 
 

Efficiently dropping “be”s in English?

What is the correct number of people to be called y'all?

Sick 'Claws :-(

Places to find lard in the store

Testing recipes and profanity while cooking

preterm party

Handmade swimsuits

It's always time for books

What to do with leftover condensed milk

Trouble shooting allergy friendly holiday cooking

abridged books

Learning languages

Places that celebrate more on Christmas Eve than Christmas

What's Happening This Week: December 18 - 24

Remembrall Sign ups

Break Month Activities --

          Secret Snowflakes -- Sign ups now closed



          The Concierge Carriage



           The Library Car



           The Engineer’s Compartment



           The Luxury Spa Car



           Hufflepuff Diagon Alley Party -- The Leaky Cauldron



           Slytherin -- Advent Sock Along



Last day for NEWT proposals – 12/22

SORTING - open until NOON POT on 12/21

Big Eagle Applications open until MIDNIGHT POT on 12/28

Prjónfesta!

Last Week in the Common Room: Pineapples!

What is your WIP level?

Feast!!!

Tower history

Exploring an oil camp

To sort or not to sort and how OWLs play into the mix.

To give things away or not

A surprisingly believable additional chapter to a HP book … generated by a predictive keyboard

Boring or drilling in English

It's cold, bring on the blanket forts!

Getting used to wife/husband after 10+ years

Pickle ornaments!

Library punk

Hot spots in pets

Numerology

The history of pineapples as symbols of welcome

Fun with regional dialects

Firstie Friday: Fall 2017 Final Update

It's time for the final Firstie Friday update for the Fall 2017 term. We have some final stats and accomplishments to share for the outgoing Firstie class.

Class Participation

Here's a few charts showing overall class participation per month and turn-ins by class per month.

These turn-ins included 5Bobbins submitting something for all 8 classes and Detention in September, and KauaiD turning in 8 classes in November. 

We also had one Firstie turn in something for every single class this term including Detention all three months. A resounding way to go to qtinki for this outstanding and difficult accomplishment!

Recognition

We had a few Firsties who had some pretty outstanding accomplishments for their first term.

Completionist - There were four Firsties who earned the much sought-after and difficult to accomplish Completionist badge. Congrats to Lynn4MK, mooseloon, Mootzee and qtinki for this achievement.

Trophy Nominations - Lynn4MK and 5Bobbins received nominations for September class work, Lynn4MK received a second nomination in October and Mootzee was nominated for her work in November.

Mad Science Nominations - A special recognition in the Tower, Mad Scientist awards go to those 'Claws who have shown an inquisitive, experimenting nature. Two Firsties received nominations from fellow 'Claws for outstanding work; 5Bobbins for the gorgeous baby blanket she graphed herself and crocheted for her son and Mootzee for her beautiful crocheted scarf showing her Ravenclaw pride.

Our phenomenal Fall 2017 Firsties have worked hard this term, accomplished some amazing things and done themselves and The Tower proud. We have loved having them and look forward to many more terms of their participation in the House.

End of Term Stats

I had hoped to do a more complete set of stats for you, dearest Ravenclaws, but end-of-term madness comes on us all! Your intrepid stats reporter is moving on to another staff position and facing some exciting but energy-consuming things in her Muggle life. But I couldn't leave you all hanging!

So, we've been following stats by dorm all term, and of course we have to see where this all ended up!

After all the stats this term, I am not surprised at our leaders. The sevenths may be our smallest dorm, but they sure make up for it in dedication! The fourths have been switching off with them for first place all term, and it's no surprise they have taken a strong second place. They are both strong outliers in a field of students who all hang around the same average.

For our final chart, I would like to note that all the stats I have been using come from an unofficial spreadsheet, not the ones that provide out final Feast numbers, and due to human error the numbers don't always match up perfectly, so you may note that the final total for the house doesn't quite match the one we were awarded. This is the best source I have access to, though, and I trust that it is relatively accurate!

We had a great term, everyone! We may not have won, but we sure managed a great overall score, anyway.

And now it's time for this stats reporter to sign off. I trust that the Aerie will be in good hands next term!

What's Happening This Week -- December 11 - 17

Sorting Sign ups -- Open until NOON POT 12/21

Remembrall Sign ups

Mad Science Voting -- Voting open through 12/15

November Trophy Nominations -- Voting open until 12/18

        

Break Month Activities --

         Secret Snowflakes -- Sign ups open through 12/15

         The Concierge Carriage

The Library Car

         The Engineer’s Compartment

          The Luxury Spa Car

          Hufflepuff Diagon Alley Party -- The Leaky Cauldron

          Slytherin -- Advent Sock Along

Last Week in the Common Room: Movie watching ... in an aquarium??

Detention OWL/ OWL contemplation

Hot chocolate vs cocoa

a change in plans

movie watching and aquarium?

Sorting with the people you joined the cup with or by the number of terms you completed

Guinea pigs and cold temperature acclimation

Running in handmade or wool socks and the properties of wool socks

The stubbornness of old yarn to disappear and techniques that use up yarn

Different sock soles

What to do with leftover jam and all the baking

Seventeenth century silk stocking reconstruction project

Busy 'Claws and holiday plans

Snow in the south and windy CA and delayed relatives

Last minute crafting!!!

From the Desk of the Head of House: Shiny Things! Term-long Edition

If you ever have extra time on your hands and want to see the awesome that is created throughout the House Cup, open up all of the threads for a term and look at the projects that have been turned in.

When thinking about what to showcase as a sort of showcase of projects from the whole term, a few things came to mind.  I made a couple blankets this term, should I feature those?  Well, I featured blanket *squares* earlier this term so maybe not.  What about shawls?  I love shawls, and I also made one of those myself this term.  Or socks?  I have always wanted to be a sock knitter but I get distracted after the first sock (and learned this term that knitting two at a time is definitely not the solution for me).

Then one of my kids mentioned that it seems like winter is taking forever to actually arrive.  We've had a lot of yo-yo weather here lately, and I couldn't help but agree.  And something that I think of around this time of year is sweaters.  With a sweater, you can often wear it over something else so that if you get too warm you can remove the sweater and then put it back on if you get chilly again.  So that's what I'm featuring this time for Shiny Things!

I did not pull from Detention, and I did not include partials simply because in both cases the item wasn't entirely made in the time period chosen.  There are also a couple missing from the video because the pictures include children.

Without further ado, here is the video showcase of all of the sweaters done for classes, Advanced Studies, and Quidditch this term!

Projects included from: aknittingstory, amylin, anisa, bandbabe, barnowl, bigsnakes, caranam, cathycake. chrissyteenychan, feoragruadh, gojenn, helpfulkitten, hopesclan, hreow, k8macq, kadiddly, knittingima, kvaustin, ladylou, lateclematis, lindseyluz, lindzabeth, missjanejetson, mooseloon, obliviathefirst, rachelolo, rondaletts, s2five, sadielou, scrappinrobyn, secrettrail, shanbonan, toolizzforyou, twillow, wendebular, winemakerssister, zisch304; Cyprienne and knotnknit also turned in sweaters, but their turn-ins had their younglings in them.

You may have noticed that a couple of them are not what most people would consider a "sweater."  There's a couple vests and ponchos in there, and I felt like since they are involved in keeping the upper body warm they can count as sweaters for this.

Do you have any sweaters planned for next term?  Or even during Break Month?  I made my first adult sweater (and sleeveless sweater) in the Spring 2017 term and I am considering making another one next term.  We'll see what has grabbed my attention come January ;)

As always, take care,

End of Term AS Round-up

There were many, many spectacular Advanced Studies projects this term, as always in our house! There were so many to choose from that I decided I would focus on two groups of people that really went the distance: Our newest OWL Mistresses and our NEWT finishers!

First off, our illustrious new OWL Mistresses! Eight Ravenclaws achieved this honor this term: knitsNhikes, Hreow, Caranam, SadieLou, llim, keres, lsgarner, and squeaking in at the last minute, senkatnovo!

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Though of course if I really wanted to show off the amount of work they put in I would post the results of all their previous 11 OWLs! I think you can all admire their newest projects and see just how lovely their previous work must have been.

And of course our marvelous NEWTers! This term six Ravenclaws made it to the end of their NEWT projects: kvaustin, leahandthedragon, bchapman1017, knittingIma, xamonster, and soprano1!

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Great work to all our OWL Mistresses and NEWTers and everyone else who turned in Advanced Studies this term!

What's Happening This Week -- December 4 - 10

House Cup Staff Application -- Through 12/4

Remembrall Sign up -- Sign up for a Sorting reminder!

        

Break Month Activities --

         Secret Snowflakes -- Sign ups open through 12/15

         The Concierge Carriage

The Library Car

         The Engineer’s Compartment

         The Luxury Spa Car

         Hufflepuff Diagon Alley Party -- The Leaky Cauldron

         Slytherin -- Advent Sock Along

Last Week in the Common Room: Meerkats for Christmas!

Ideas for knitting kits

Taking knitting needles through airports

Partials and the quickly approaching end of term!

Sickness runs rampant in the Tower

Italy

Biggest malls in the US

Meerkats for Christmas!

Advent socks

the continuation of mouse problems

WIP along

It's Study Time! Stashdown, Weaving and Readers

We have a few more Specialist Study threads to visit as part of our tour.

Stashdown Accountability

On a quest to reduce your stash, or just looking for a No-Buy Buddy? This thread is the place for both. Look here for help setting stashdown goals, look for a partner to help keep you accountable and set a plan for checking in. There's plenty of support and encouragement here for any goal you're looking to achieve.

Weaving

Another Ravelry craft represented by it's own thread is Weaving. Current or would-be weavers of all skill levels gather here to discuss their craft. Whether you are looking to get started and are looking for recommendations on looms, need help with a project or pattern, or just want to show off your latest creation, this is your destination in the Tower.

Ravenclaw Readers

For many, crafting and reading go together, and the search for a new book can be as much of a thrill as new yarn. That's where this thread comes in as it's where Tower readers go to look for recommendations for both hard copy and audiobooks and to discuss recently read works. There are even personal book lists and the option for a personal recommendation upon request. Egredietur lectorum!


We're approaching the end of our tour through the Tower Specialist Study threads. Let us know if there are any ones in particular that you would like to learn more about, and stay tuned to this column for a review of the last few in coming weeks.