Frogwarts Year 3

Frogwarts Year 3 by Kathryn Landis, released through The Black Needle Society — the third chart in the seven-part Frogwarts band sampler that mirrors the seven Harry Potter books, one band per year, dropped annually at The Black Needle Society’s Frogwarts online stitching retreat. Year 3 was released at the July 2022 retreat and tracks Prisoner of Azkaban — the Sirius year, where he’s framed as the villain for the whole book and revealed at the end to be Harry’s godfather and an Animagus called Padfoot.

The full band reads as a Year-3 catalogue of references, left-to-right:

• The Knight Bus — the purple triple-decker that scoops Harry up off the Privet Drive curb after he runs away from the Dursleys (and Aunt Marge inflates).
• A boggart cabinet — the wardrobe Professor Lupin uses for his class’s first practical DADA lesson against boggarts.
• “Riddikulus” in purple script — the boggart-defeating spell.
• A small rat — Scabbers, who is of course not actually a rat but Peter Pettigrew (Wormtail) hiding in plain sight as the Weasleys’ family pet for twelve years.
• A tall hooded dementor — the Azkaban guards posted around Hogwarts for the year, ostensibly to find Sirius.
• A small gold Time Turner — Hermione’s, used quietly all year to attend extra classes and dramatically at the end of the book to save Buckbeak and Sirius.
• A stag Patronus in luminous blue — Harry’s, called Prongs after his father’s animagus form.
• “Expecto Patronum” in blue script — the Patronus charm Lupin teaches Harry privately.
• A decorative striped band running underneath the whole scene with the year’s signature line — “I solemnly swear that I am up to no good · Mischief managed” — the activation and dismissal phrases of the Marauder’s Map, the artefact Fred and George hand off to Harry this year (made by Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs themselves).
• The Padfoot pawprint border running across this band — see the Frogwarts Border entry for the freebie’s backstory; the pattern is free on this site. Worth noting the border is especially on-theme for Year 3 — this is the book where we actually meet Padfoot in person.

Same continuous piece of 32ct Picture This Plus Heartland as the rest of the sampler — the Year 4 band sits directly below this one, and Year 5 below that. Year 7 releases at the July 2026 retreat, which will complete the set.

Started January 8, 2024. Finished January 22, 2026 — a long stretch of off-and-on stitching while the later years’ retreats came and went. 11,729 stitches for this band alone.