I am a Harry Potter fan.  I love the books, I love the movies, I love the behind the scenes, interviews and funny memes. Recently I discovered a fabulous new project.  Jennifer Ofenstein has created paper pieced quilt patterns to make a Harry Potter quilt.  Awesome, right?

This is Jennifer’s finished quilt. I hope mine turns out just as awesome!

She runs several web sites devoted to this form of quilting.  If your like me and have no idea what paper piece quilting is, head on over to her main site to watch tutorials and learn essential tips.  She has created quilt patterns for all of her fandom patterns and they are FREE!!  Of course I was drawn to the Harry Potter ones which can be found Here for the main quilt squares and Here for even more squares you may choose to add or replace some of the original patterns with.  There is also a wonderful community of people on a Facebook page devoted to making these wonderful quilts.  It’s a closed group to keep out the trolls, but they are quick to add new members.  It’s a great resource for questions and even scrap fabric swaps.

For the basic quilt, you choose 30 squares that will be hooked together to create a bookcase or castle.  You can choose to make it bigger by adding more squares or add things to the top, bottom and sides of the quilt top.  Each pattern is ranked by skill level.  I started with an easy one and am working my way up to the more difficult ones.  Here are the ones I’ve completed so far.

Harry Potter Quilt in Progress

I’m keeping the paper on the backs until I assemble the whole quilt top.  They look like this:

The back of the squares

As you can see, when using this method of paper piecing, you sew directly onto the paper.  This makes it easier to create complex designs that match up.  I started with the 3 books square which taught me basic skills and was easier to assemble than some of the others.  I will decide what order I want them in after I’ve made all 30 blocks.  My daughter and I are doing this project together.  We have different backgrounds and are choosing different fabrics for the items in each block.  This project will take us a while, but it’s been fun sewing together.  Want to join us?