Frogwarts Year 5

Frogwarts Year 5 by Kathryn Landis, released through The Black Needle Society — the fifth chart in a seven-part band sampler series that mirrors the seven Harry Potter books, one band per year, released annually as part of The Black Needle Society’s Frogwarts online stitching retreat. Year 5 dropped at the July 10–14, 2024 retreat and tracks Order of the Phoenix.

The full band reads as a Year-5 catalogue of references, left-to-right:

• 12 Grimmauld Place — the brick row house Sirius hands over to the Order as headquarters.
• A row of quills and an OWL grade — fifth-year exams.
• A Prefect badge with a P — Ron’s badge (and the slight Harry never says out loud about not getting one himself).
• “Protego” in red script — the Shield Charm, the centrepiece of Harry’s secret D.A. lessons.
• A Thestral — the skeletal winged horses Harry can see for the first time this year, because he watched Cedric die.
• A small wizard figure — D.A. member.
• Educational Decree 24 — Umbridge’s decree banning student organisations, which is precisely what kicks off Dumbledore’s Army.
• A green snake — the vision Harry has of Nagini attacking Mr Weasley in the Department of Mysteries corridor.
• “Legilimens” in blue — Snape’s Occlumency lessons (which famously do not go well).
• Tonks, in pink hair — first introduced as an Auror and Order member this year.
• A tall hooded silhouette — Dementor (the chapter-one Dudley attack that opens the book).
• A blue band running underneath the whole scene with the year’s signature line — “Things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end” — Luna Lovegood, on the way to the Ravenclaw common room after Sirius’s death.
• A dotted black border running across the top and bottom of the entire sampler.

That last one is mine: I designed those border bits as Padfoot pawprints — Sirius Black’s animagus form’s tracks framing the entire Year 5 band, since Year 5 is the Sirius year (he’s the emotional centre of the book, and the one we lose at the end — Luna’s line is partly about him). The pawprint chart is a free pattern on this site for anyone else stitching Frogwarts who wants to add it to their own band.

The whole seven-part series is being worked on a single continuous piece of 32ct Picture This Plus Heartland — a soft warm-cream hand-dyed evenweave that ties the whole sampler together visually as each year’s band is added below the previous. The Year 4 band sits directly above this one and the Year 6 band directly below. Year 7 releases at the July 2026 retreat, which will complete the set.

Started June 30, 2024. Finished July 13, 2024 — during the retreat itself. 12,242 stitches for this band alone.