One of my nephews turned 8 this past January which is a special birthday in our church because 8 is the age they get baptized. Now that we live so close to them, we were so blessed to be able to attend his baptism and celebrate with him. I wanted to give him something special, but alas I'm clueless to the desires of an 8 year old boy. However, this nephew recently discovered Harry Potter and has probably read the first few books a bajillion times. So I thought, what goes best with an avid book reader and a Harry Potter fan? a blanket of course (my husband tends to disagree - he clearly has never snuggled under a blanket while reading)

I am by no means a quilter. Far from it. But this idea just came to me and seemed simple enough. I made it lap sized, but still big enough to stay warm while reading.

[for lap or child size quilt]

1 yard of yellow

1/2 yard of red

1 1/2 yard coordinating color fleece (I did red)

 The blanket width is the size of the width of the fabric. You can cut your strips perfectly even width or you can do it like me and make it kind of random. Then I add varying sizes of red in between. The yellow strips were generally larger than the red. 

I then sewed all the strips together alternating red and yellow.

 I used my silhouette to cut out my letters (tutorial here), but for the snitch I just sort of made up a pattern and cut it myself. I used the Stonehenge font found HERE

 I thought about quilting it to the fleece and then adding some binding, but I decided not to. I placed the front (striped side) wrong side on to the fleece and sewed around the outer edge of quilt (leaving a 10 inch gap on one edge). Then I turned it all right side out. 

 I decided to quilt it after I turned it right side out. I just quilted in the ditch and it turned out great.  

I think I really need to make one for myself now....Happy Harry Pottering!!