My daughter Susie is having a joint birthday Harry Potter party with her friends this weekend. Everyone is dressing up as a Harry Potter character and she is Hermione. Would you believe that Susie and her friends are 25 year old!!

We are all HP fans in this house and Susie grew up with the books and films. My older grandchildren love it too and we did visit the Harry Potter Studios which was a great day. Annabel and William dressed up in their school uniforms, robes and scarves that I made for them armed with their wands of course. They had a dvd made of them riding a broomstick which is quite comical.

Anyway, I agreed to make a Sorting Hat and spent most of Sunday afternoon and evening making it.

The pattern is excellent, but I was having trouble getting the size needed. I ended up using the biggest hook I possessed and used 3 strands of aran yarn together and instead of sc, I did hdc. The yarn is a very thin aran and nowhere near as thick as Vanna’s Choice. It was very hard going and after three failed attempts, I finally got the size needed.

It was very floppy, so I used stuffing placed into a pair of flesh coloured panty hose (only the panty part with the legs cut of an knotted) which camouflaged and contained the white stuffing so it didn’t show through.

I made a disc and sewed it inside the hat to keep the bag of stuffing in place.

I am very pleased with the end result and now I am going to try it on to see which house I belong to!