As I mentioned lo those many months ago, I did a series of pictures with my Gryffindor socks while I was in Britain. My socks got quite a thorough cultural tour of London, but didn't see much of anywhere else because I was frantically working on the baby blanket until the last week or so of the trip. (There were two reasons I stopped. One, my parents left and we started taking the train instead of the van they rented, and the blanket was very cumbersome for train trips, and two, I brought the wrong ball of yarn for the last section of the blanket.) So, with apologies for the delay, I present to you the Gryffindor Socks' Cultural Tour of Britain! You can click on the photos for larger versions.

Their first appearance was in Edinburgh. I'd had them with me for the previous few days in York, but Jamie was too busy taking pictures of the train museum to take any of the sock. However, a lot of sock got knit in the train museum, as I do not care about trains three hours worth. I met several nice people who came to ask me what I was knitting, though.

Anyway, Edinburgh was the first day that I remembered that I wanted to do this, so the sock got to admire the cannon at Edinburgh Castle, which was a super cool place. Excellent audio guide, which I am enjoying in this picture.



Also in Edinburgh was the excellent yarn department at John Lewis. It was quite a struggle to find any yarn - all these yarn stores in the phone book didn't exist any more! Very traumatic. An emergency post to the knitty boards at an internet cafe saved me at the last minute, and here I am perusing the yarn. The sock is in my purse so it doesn't get jealous.



When we got back to England, we headed for London for several days. One of our first stops was Kings Cross Station. I can't BELIEVE I don't have my freaking Gryffindor socks in this picture! But I will post it anyway, as it is tangentially related and also cool.



The next day, the sock got to go on an exciting tube ride! I look like a moron in this picture. I think it was almost our stop and Jamie wasn't taking the picture because he wanted to wait for a tube sign in the background, which clearly (a) didn't work, and (b) didn't matter anyway. But I did do quite a lot of knitting as we rode around town on the tube.



Later that day, the sock had an exciting trip to Big Ben. Complete with a policeman with a proper hat on! Excellent. (I'm sure he wondered what the hell we were doing.) This is another bad picture of me. Most of the non-sock ones look fine. For some reason, taking a picture of myself with a sock makes me look stupid.



Conveniently nearby to Big Ben, of course, is Westminster Abbey. It is huge and beautiful. We went to an Evensong service there, which was really cool. You can barely see the sock because this is about three photos stitched together. It gives you a great sense of the scale, though.



Then we took the Tube home again. The sock wanted to stop at the Tube sign, as it is such a nice complement to its colours.



What you should really note about these pictures is how incredibly busy everywhere we went would have been. I'm sure there are now hundreds, if not thousands, of Londoners and tourists who are wondering why the hell I was taking all these pictures of socks. (I wonder who they thought was weirder? Me, for being in them, or Jamie for taking them?)

The next day, we went to the Tower of London, which was freaking expensive. The audio guide was also sub-par. Still, it was cool. I didn't take any pictures with the sock inside the tower. I think I felt a little weird being all "here is the place were people were executed, and here is my sock." Didn't stop me with the cannons, I realise.

Anyway, there was this statue across the street that made an excellent sock holder. I have no idea who he is, which is rather embarrassing, but he looks great with the sock!



Then we went along the water to the Tower Bridge. Nice, isn't it?



Apparently a lot of people think it's London Bridge, but it isn't. That's down the other end of the river.

Now, you may be noticing at this point that the sock is almost done. You are not wrong. Which is why the rest of the pictures feature the second sock, because I finished the first one on the train home after we went to the Tower. (We stayed about an hour out of London, which meant lots of knitting time!)

You can't really see it in the picture, but here's me and the second sock at the Globe.



And, finally, here is the second sock at the lesser known side of St. Paul's Cathedral. They were unfortunately doing construction over by its famous dome, so it wasn't as impressive looking as usual. Still, this part of it is super cool. We didn't go inside because we were too cheap. (I know, lame. But we'd spent a fortune on getting into large old churches at that point, and there's only so many you can take!)



Someone was getting ordained that day, so the bells were ringing for several hours. Which was supremely cool - felt very authentic. Gorgeous bells, too.

So after their whirlwind adventures in Britain, the socks probably found coming back to Edmonton pretty dull. But once they finally got finished, they were sent to live in Vancouver with my sister. They turned out really well, and once I finish my holiday knitting I have enough yarn for a pair for myself. Mmm, nerdy. They look like they're two different sizes in this picture, but my sister is just standing funny.

Here they are! The world-travelled Gryffindor socks, on their owner's feet. This is, of course, Sunshine Yarn's famous Gryffindor yarn, nearly impossible to get. I love it! Thanks, Dani. It's just straight stockinette with a bit of ribbing, knit top down with a heel flap on size 0s for the legs, and size 1s for the foot. Addi turbos, magic loop. These were my first magic loop socks and I'll never go back.