School of Magical Stitches and Literature Year 3, Weeks 3 and 4

Time for the next part of my homework over the last month. I talked a bit about the Magical Stitches group in my previous post, and it started in January, so I think most of you already know all about it already. 

Jumping right back in where we left off, Year 3 (Prisoner of Azkaban) Week 3 gave a homework prompt of some of the changes in Year 3 at Hogwarts. One is the Dementors and all the chocolate students are eating and a second is the new Care of Magical Creatures class. The assignment was to stitch 300 stitches in any shade of brown and on a creature with claws or talons. The group moderators have question threads for each assignment and there were a lot of questions on what constitutes brown and what constitutes "claws". I played it safe for the first part and used DMC 435 and 433, both have "brown" in their colour name and worked on the basset hound some more. 

Week 3

It was last here:

and after 300 stitches:

Basset Hound by Brenda Franklin with charted threads on 14ct navy Aida 2 over 2

The bottom photo is a little truer to colour, it's on navy 14 count Aida and was started maybe 15 years ago? It's so long ago it's before I had a digital camera that I used frequently and way before cell phone cameras. It will be so nice to get this one finished this year, and probably will happen if I can keep finding ways to use it for homework! 

For the second part, I got out Tribal Dragon again to add the 300 stitches to go from here:

to here:

Tribal Dragon by White Willow Stiching on 25ct pewter Lugana

 with Soie Cristal and Waterlilies/Kreinik 1 over 1

I think this one will keep coming out since dragons are magical creatures and should see a finish this year as well. 

Week 4

This assignment was a little more complicated. Since students are taking so many new classes this year, they asked for 200 stitches on each project to fit with at least 3 of the 5 possible classes. You get bonus points if you stitch on all 5 without penalty stitches. Penalty stitches are if you don't have anything to fit in the category, they usually ask for double stitches, so 400 stitches on something that doesn't fit any category. 

The classes were:

A) Arithmancy - basically math, numbers, etc 

I chose to pull out the dusty old Fleur de Lis mandala after someone asked if mandalas count. It was here:

And I decided I hated the satin B5200 I was using on this royal blue linen, and tried a couple different threads to see which looked better:

This is a little more true to colour for the fabric. The messy satin is at the bottom and the 2 new threads are the fleur-de-lis on the left and on the top. One is a Soie Cristal I think, or possibly a very light Waterlilies, and the other is DMC B5200. The Soie Cristale seems a little thicker and of course is lovely to stitch with, so I chose to go with that thread. I also got some input from the Ravenclaw common room and they agreed. Therefore I did the messy job of frogging all that satin DMC and I like this end result much better! 

I managed 446 stitches on this one, you have to count back stitch as 1/2 per stitch, so I did that. I didn't count the french knots, although I think they count for 1 or 2 stitches for each one. I'm enjoying this stitch much more now! I really disliked the satin and didn't realize until now how much it bothered me. :)

B) Muggle Studies - basically nothing that has any magical connotations, everything else is fair game. The interesting part is Santa counts as a Muggle object, so I pulled out the Joy snowglobe again. I had stitched on it already for some extra credit, but I haven't posted about that yet, so here's where it was:

and after 207 stitches:

Joy Snowglobe kit by Dimensions

This is growing pretty well too, and it would be nice to get this ornament on the tree this year. :)

C) Divination - predicting the future, astrology, crystal balls, etc. I had a few choices for this one, and ended up choosing this Full Moon project that I started last year. It's a very fun stitch and I was happy to get it out again. It was last here:

and 203 stitches later:

Full Moon by Cute Patterns by Maria

Stitch 2 over 2 on 28ct Lazurite by Chromatic Alchemy

and will eventually look like this:

This is by Cute Patterns by Maria on Etsy and is the same designer that created Hogwarts in a Bottle that Rachel is working on and Ocean in a Bottle that Katie just finished. She has so many beautiful designs! 

D) Ancient Runes - basically anything with writing, but more than one letter, so I couldn't stitch on any Letters from Nora. Instead I chose Butterfly Quote, which was last here:

and is now here:

Butterfly Quote by Jodyri Designs on 14ct blue Aida, unknown dyer

Stitched 2 over 2 with Jodyri threads, Pink Laydee and Sparkling Citrine so far

It was fun to get this one out again too, a big project and letters are always fun to work on since they're like mini-finishes as you complete one. 

E) Care of Magical Creatures - easy! Dragons again! Tribal Dragon came back out to get another 200 stitches. I won't put the before pic since it's farther up in this post :) But it ended here with some more chest/belly complete:

And that is it! All 5 classes complete and still some extra time to stitch today and tomorrow before homework comes out early Monday morning. 

I hope these posts are interesting, and please let me know if I can improve them. What I hope to do once I get caught up is let you know what I'm thinking about stitching for each week and comments are always welcome! 

Happy Stitching!

Tiffstitch