Harry Potter Party: Hats

We made these witch hats for Emily's Harry Potter party as a cheaper and easier-to-make alternative to robes, which was Emily's original plan. We made ours from black acrylic felt (the 72"-wide kind on the bolt) which required no interfacing. No interfacing means = no need for a lining, which makes mass-producing even speedier.

We made 12 hats from about 4 - 5 yards of felt (if I remember right), using a tight layout, but if you were making just one, I'd suggest 3/4 yard (you might be able to squeeze one hat into 1/2 yard, but if you don't care for tight layouts, you might prefer 3/4 yard).

The dimensions of the hat are:

• height: 17"
• brim diameter: about 17"
• fits head circumference 22" - 23.5"

Drafting the pattern pieces is a matter of simple geometry - the crown is a cone and the brim is a doughnut - but if you'd rather not do the Math yourself, instructions to draft the templates are included in the pdf file that's available at the end of the party posts. 

Here are some basic step-by-steps to make the hat. I photographed the green version because it was easier to see the seams of than the black.

Cut:

1 pie-piece-shape for the crown, with SA along all sides.

2 doughnut shapes for the brim, with SA along the outer and inner circumferences.

The construction sequence follows below. Note that felt does not have a discernible WS and RS in general, but the WS and RS are distinguished in the instructions below for cases in which you are using a fabric that does have discernible right and wrong sides.

Step 1 Make the crown
With RS together, sew the two straight sides of the pie piece shape together to make a cone. Turn RS out.

Step 2 Attach the lower brim
Take one doughnut piece and and snip partway through the SA of the inner circle. Align this inner circle against the curved bottom edge of the cone so that the RS of this inner circle and the WS of the cone are together. Working with doughnut on top and cone underneath (shove the doughnut inside cone as you work), attach inner circle doughnut to the base of the cone. You should now have a full hat with the SA of its circular seam visible from the top.

Step 3 Attach the upper brim around the outer circumference
Place the second doughnut RS up on your work surface. Place the hat brim-down on the second doughnut so that the RS of the doughnuts are together. Sew the two doughnuts together along their OUTER circumferences. Turn this seam RS out so that the cone protrudes through BOTH doughnut layers, and topstitch 1/4" around the outer circumference of the double-layered brim (see photo below).

Step 4 Attach the upper brim around the inner circumference

Snip the SA of the inner circle of the second doughnut. Fold in its SA (the snips help it lie flat) to the WS and align this folded circular edge with the stitching line from Step 2. 

Topstitch (or edge- stitch) through all layers to attach the second doughnut around its inner circumference.

You can see this line of edge-stitching in the black hats below, just around the base of the cone.

These hats stay on heads very well.

Harry Potter Party: Quidditch

So, Quidditch.

A Harry Potter party has to have some version of this famous aerial game, right? Even on the ground, there were so many variations we could've included: broomsticks/no broomsticks, Beaters/no Beaters, Chasers/no Chasers/everyone as Chasers, flying Snitch/hidden Snitch, etc.

And then there was the challenge of the balls.

Our Quaffle (the reddish-brown ball that scores goals) was a store-bought thing. We were out shopping and saw a red ball, and bought it. Literally.

The Bludgers (the balls that Beaters smack at the other team to knock them off their brooms) could not be store-bought rubber balls, Emily maintained, because being hit by by those would not be cool. Party Quidditch was not Dodge Ball, apparently. So we made ours - super easy. Any pattern to make a fabric ball would work but if you'd like our template, it'll be in the download-able pdf file here.

The Golden Snitch did not serve any function other than To Be Found. Therefore, it had to be as realistic as possible. We made the wings with florist wire and aluminum foil. Here's how:

• Cut a length of florist wire (I think ours was 18 gauge and about 5" long).
• Cut a piece of aluminum foil 1" shorter than the wire, fold in half lengthwise, apply glue to the non-shiny side, and fold over the wire, positioning the wire at the fold. Press to make a sandwich. 
• Trim the unfolded edge of the foil to a wing shape, and then cut a fringe along the entire length for feathers. 
• Repeat to make a second wing.

• Spray a golf ball with gold paint. 
• Drill holes into opposite ends of the golf ball. Use a drill bit that matches the diameter of the wire. Trim the free end of the wire to the depth of the holes, then apply glue to these ends and stick them in the holes.
• Bend the wire to shape the wings.

Finished Snitch.

To set up the Quidditch pitch, we used this simple structure with whatever we could find in the garage. This was a quick take-down, as well as lawn-friendly as there were no stakes involved. We tied a long wooden beam to the top rung of a foldable ladder, then bungee-corded hula hoops to the ends of the beam.

For the rules of our version of Quidditch, see this post.

All Things New

I'm interrupting our regular Harry Potter programming to share a snippet of my crazy life.

You guys probably know that construction stuff has been going on at home and most days I get zero work done. It's hard, not being able to do work. If I were still a classroom teacher, I think I'd have been able to do most teacher tasks even while, say, living in the back of my car. I mean, I could grade lab reports while the world spun madly by outside. I could also still social-media my students to the moon and back. And I could write out lesson plans, proposals for a new pitching machine for the softball team, solicit cost estimates for costumes for the competition choir, and draft letters of recommendation for college applications on my laptop.

Motherhood + design work, though . . . not so much.

It still blows my mind how much unstructured creative space I need for designing and making. Unfortunately, there isn't much creative space in my life right now; all I have are discrete 15-minute-quanta of time-between-other-unpredictable-demands. Enough for a quick trip to the supermarket, a reply to someone's email about a sleeve drafting problem, or a fiddle with the loose screw in some kid's sunglasses (it takes me that long to find the screwdriver now that I don't know where the kitchen junk drawer is since, you know, there's no kitchen).

But nowhere near enough to conceptualize, incubate, or evolve an idea, let alone a working prototype.

I think I've finally come to terms with not actually being productive. Or, at least, productive in the way I think productive should look. Grand announcement: I have officially adjusted my expectations. Microwaving a meal in the bathroom is phenomenal! Getting all the laundry from one floor to the next without smearing paint or wood stain on anything is awesome! Lining up one thousand (okay, 15) Harry Potter party projects to auto-post is Nobel-prize-worthy! Even if I had to correct an average of one thousand (okay, 4) typos per post the second after they went live. Still Olympian-standard. Still productive.

And even if I haven't hand-made anything new in about a century (okay, 3 months) it's still okay.

Although not because my schedules and routines are currently bonkers.

Instead because "productive" as a classroom teacher is not the same as "productive" as an office worker is not the same as "productive" as a full-time mother is not the same as "productive" as a work-at-home parent who didn't manage to actually get any of that work done at the end of any given day.

I hereby cut myself some slack to redefine "productive".
And "hand-make".
And "new".

Let me show you something important now:

You all know this little sweetheart.

Her name is Bunny, and she is Kate's alter ego.

Almost four years ago, Kate asked for her for her birthday.

Almost four years ago, Bunny looked like this:

She looks a little different now.

We've all noticed it. 

But none more than Kate, who has been growing increasingly alarmed that Bunny's fur is a bit mangy, that her nose is sparse-ing out, that her neck has got a bit of a tragic kink. 

Although personally, that head tilt just about knocks me out every time.

And between you and me, for all the ways she is no longer pristine and cloud-fluffy, Bunny has a fabulous personality.

Especially when she and Kate Get Up To No Good together. They are a hoot. They make the best partners in crime. They inspire the most rip-roaring adventures and stories and skits.

She is, hands-down, the most productive bit of hand-made work I have ever performed.

But the fact remains: Bunny is not what she used to be.

A couple of years back, when the decline first became evident, Kate began making end-of-life plans for her favorite companion.

"You'd better start sewing a new Bunny, Mom," she warned me. "Bunny's fur is falling out."

Last week, she had a bit of a crisis. All at once, it hit her that Bunny was old. 

Old = Death, and Death = Loss, and Loss = well, let's not even go there.

Do not laugh. This is important to everyone, especially kids.

We tried euphemisms.

"Bunny is well-loved," we reframed.

True, but it was beside the point.

"Bunny hasn't got a single seam-hole," I pointed out, ever the perfectionist seamstress hell-bent on quality control.

True, but it was beside the point.

We offered fixes.

"We can bleach Bunny," we suggested. "Maybe light grey isn't the new white the media made it out to be."

Practical, but it was beside the point.

"We can sew Bunny a New-Fur suit," we said. 

Less practical, and still beside the point.

"I can make you a new bunny," I promised at last. After all, I'd done it once; I could do it again. (And this time I'm using the superior, ultra-expensive fur). 

Oh dear. Not only was that beside the point, it was also a travesty to even think it.

You see, Kate wanted Old Bunny with New Fur That Doesn't Scream Grief and Loss. Not New Bunny, or Cosmetically-Enhanced Bunny or even High Fashion Fur Coat Bunny. All ye with children-and-lovies will understand this.  

The negotiations went on for two days. 

Finally, we had a treatment plan: surgery - organ transplants and a nose job.

I gave Kate a little pill cutter and she shaved Bunny (and saved all the precious little grey fuzz balls in a bag).

And then I took the scalpel to her. It was surprisingly emotional.

Out came all the old, ineffectual stuffing, and in went brand new fluffy polyfill. And I re-stitched her nose and mouth.

Kate is pretty relieved by the outcome although it did take her a while to get used to Reinvented Old-Bunny. Understandably, Bunny post-op didn't look at all like comfortable old pre-op Bunny. For one, she gained a lot of weight and now sits without slouching. When it was all done, Kate took her to school to share the story of her surgery with her class. It was all deeply charming and happily-ever-after but right there in the middle of all that awwwww-ness was the tiniest bit of something melancholic: I missed her old floppiness and attitude; she's suddenly become proper and earnest, like a kid who's been told he must behave himself because he's old enough to know now what he didn't when the world was young and kind. 

Or maybe that's motherhood whispering about children instead, and innocence, and how quickly the universe demands they be ready to let theirs go. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference.

We will be grafting on new foot pads next. But not just yet - too much all at once might feel like an overhaul. We don't want to accidentally lose Old Bunny, you see. And we're going to coax out her old spunk and personality once again. Already, Bunny is asserting herself with a hint of her trademark sass, declaring that she's off carrots for the indefinite future because she maybe she ate too much too fast and needs a brand new wardrobe and whoa, she can totally hold her head high now and laugh at the days to come.

And that is my life snippet. When designing and creating, I've always preferred to make something new from scratch over restoring something old, because that's the way to challenge dime-a-dozen and push the frontiers of amazingness. I've never been gladder to be wrong.

Harry Potter Party: Brooms

Broomsticks today!

Of all the takeaways at Emily's Harry Potter party, these broomsticks were by far the most challenging to conceptualize. For one, there were no convenient versions on the internet that satisfied the list of mental conditions Emily had for what her broomsticks needed to look like. For another, we were mass-producing a thing which even the simplest of those internet versions claimed to require a lot of time and effort. Finally, for the longest time, Emily and I were also not on the same page regarding the finished look: I visualized a practical Walmart kitchen broom with its bristles splayed out, and Emily envisioned . . . well, the Firebolt. 

Unbelievably, we did actually design a mass-produceable version that looked quite like what Emily had pictured. We are happy to share that with you today!

If I were making just one (instead of 12), I'd have done it a little differently. For the broom handle, for instance, I'd have waited instead till I found an actual tree branch that was charmingly bent, and perhaps used actual bristles or thin twigs. 

This mass-produceable version, though, uses straight dowels and papier mache - not necessarily cheaper, but we had a lot more control over obtaining  and working with our materials.

First, start with dowels. We bought 7/8"-diameter dowels from the craft store. These came as 36" (1 yard) lengths, which was not quite long enough for a broom+bristles, but we found a way to extend the length in a later step.

These we spray-painted brown.

Next, we wrapped a piece of cardboard around one end as shown. This was for two reasons:

1. 36" was not long enough to make a proportionate-looking broom+bristles, This roll of cardboard added a few much-needed inches.
2. Rather than gluing the crumpled paper (see later step) directly to the dowel, we glued that to this cardboard layer. This way, if someday we wanted to re-use our dowels, we'd just cut off the cardboard layer and poach back that dowel.

Back on task now - wrap cardboard around one end of the dowel, so that the dowel only protrudes into it partway. We used cereal box cardboard, backs of writing pads and notebooks, etc. The exact size of the cardboard doesn't matter, but ours was roughly 4.5" x 11" (or the back of an 8.5" x 11" notebook cut down the middle to make two narrow rectangles). Our dowel end was roughly 6" into the cardboard.

Apply glue as needed

to wrap and secure the cardboard around the end of the dowel

like so.

Now rip up one grocery sack.

Crush pieces into lumps.

Hot-glue them around the cardboard tube, filling the middle portion more fully than the ends - this is meant to be blimp-shaped.

These crushed lumps create a form on which to apply the papier mache. Emily's original idea was to use a drinking water bottle shoved onto the end of the dowel for a form. We tried that, and found it too skinny and short. 

Here's a whole bunch of lumpy-ended broomsticks.

Next, tape over all hollows with masking tape. This helps smooth out the surface on which to lay the papier mache pieces. You can also use the tape to fine-tune the shape of the form.

Mix up a batch of papier mache paste, using flour+water or glue+water. We prefer the latter, because it dries faster and does not smell weird.

Cut butcher paper (or brown paper or newspaper) into squares, dip in the paste and layer over the form.

No need to make it uniform or symmetrical - there is a certain charm in those weird contours.

Tear (or cut) another grocery sack into long strips slightly longer than the form. Ours were about 13" long.

Dip the strips in paste and lay them lengthwise on the form, overlapping to cover the flat squares underneath.

Two things to note here:

1. at the bottom end of the form (where the form joins the dowel) extend the strips beyond the form to rest on the dowel. You will be tying cord around this later.
2. at the top end of the form, you will be shaping the ends of the brown strips to a point. See the next photo for this.

The finished papier-mache layers should look something like this:

When the papier mache is dry (ours took two days), paint everything. I actually liked the natural color of the brown paper, but the white paper layer was visible through the strips, so we had to paint everything (also to cover the red print on some of the strips). If you'd like to keep yours natural, be sure to use brown paper in the first layer, too.

The tips will have dried hard.

as will the ends at the bottom of the form.

Apply hot glue and wrap twine or cord around the lower end of the form to finish the look.

Finished broomstick!

On the day of the party, we provided metallic Sharpies for guests to inscribe the name their brooms on the dowels: Nimbus 2000, Firebolt, etc.