The Four Houses of Hogwarts

At the end of the last post you saw how I laid out the focal blocks for my Harry Potter quilt. There were gaps that needed to be filled however. Hmm... what would be appropriate? Something that would add to the story line of the quilt top but not take attention completely away from the focal blocks...

Eventually I thought of the banners representing the four Houses of Hogwarts flapping in the breeze around the Quidditch field. Then I had to look up the colors (and found a wonderful website in the process). Now, what block would be best to use?

My first thought was something on the order of a Rail Fence.

This struck me as a little heavy and clunky, especially for something that's supposed to be waving in the wind. It was also more labor intensive than I really wanted.

The next block I tried was Gwen Marston's Windmill.

Much quicker to make and I like the look better. These are Ravenclaw's colors by the way, blue and bronze. Bronze was hard to come up with in fabric!

To fill in all the holes I had to make two blocks for each House. The first set of red and gold that I made for Gryffendor turned out looking more like red and brown (or bronze, like Ravenclaw!). It was a simple matter to make two new blocks with a lighter "gold."

Originally my intention was to just mash the blocks up against each other in the interest of speed of construction. (These quilts have to be in Michigan by the first weekend of December.) Once I had all the Windmill blocks made and in place, however, I realized that they needed sashing to separate them visually. That's the next step.

Sharp-eyed readers may notice that I changed the fabric framing up the central Harry Potter block. Before the completion of the top it will undergo one more change. You'll see that in the next post. :- )

News flash: I just found out that there's an exhibit of sets and costumes and props from the actual Harry Potter movies that will be opening tomorrow at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle. Wouldn't I love to see that!