First up was Herbology, where we were tasked to create either a project made from an edible fiber (corn, soy, milk, etc.), or to create a representation of food. Having no edible fibers to use, I went with the second option, and created this amigurumi, which flips back and forth from a fish to a sushi:
I late gave this to Elijah's mom, who grew up in Japan and loves sushi. She thought it was really cool!
The next class that I completed was DADA. The assignment was to look into the Mirror of Erised and see our deepest desire, then to create a pair of objects representing that desire. One of my desires is to one day have kids, a boy and a girl, so I created these two knitted woven balls:
For HoM this month, we studied the Four Founders, and were instructed to make something representing one of the Founders. Since my idea was for a small item, I chose to make something that represents all of the Founders. I made a broomstick for each, adorned with their House colors, because I feel that a broomstick can represent each Founder with a different aspect.
First, the broom is a good symbol for Helga Hufflepuff, who valued those who did not fear hard work. She wasn’t much one for unnecessarily fancy things, so she would have wanted her broom to be simple and unassuming.
Second, the broomstick would be more than just a tool for cleaning to Rowena Ravenclaw. She valued cleverness, and it is very clever to enchant an everyday object such as a broom to become a flying broom!
It is not only clever, but also cunning to make such a mundane object be able to fly! This fact would have been appreciated by Salazar Slytherin, who valued cunning and secrets. Not only can a broom fly, but it can also understand simple commands, such as “Up!” and can interpret the movements of the rider to know what it is supposed to do. Very cunning, indeed!
Finally, Godric Gryffindor provides the bravery that it takes to fly a broom. It can be scary to fly on anything, whether it’s a hippogriff or a flying carpet, but a broom can be rather hard to hold onto. It takes a lot of bravery to fly something so small, and Gryffindor has that in spades.
So you see, the simple broomstick is really much more than it seems. Looked at the right way, it has the attributes of all the Four Founders!
I finished Ancient Runes well before the last of the month, but because I was busy with moving, ended up posting it late at night on June 30. We had to choose a non-Latin writing style/system to study, and I chose the alphabet from Futurama. Ravenclaw, following May's May Flowers Challenge, had a June Bugs Challenge, so I knitted the words "June Bugs" in Futurama into a dishcloth, and bordered it with little bugs:
And here's the chart I made, so that you can better see the design:
The final two classes this month were joint Charms and Potions. In Charms, we studied Lumos (light) and Nox (dark), and in Potions, we studied Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder. For Charms, we had to create something that shows the interplay between light and dark, and for Potions, we had to create either a Hand of Glory (which is a hand that gives light only to the holder, but we were encouraged to be creative), or a representation of something that creates light. We got bonus points if we connected our Charms and Potions projects somehow.
I connected my projects by doing two Star Trek-themed items. For Charms, I double-knit a dishcloth. When you double-knit with two colors, you have the positive image on one side, and an inverse image on the other:
and the back:
For Potions, I made a Type-II Phaser:
And that's all for June! I'm working on several projects for July, and I will again be trying to make all six classes. Perhaps next term, I'll try for an OWL!
