The Summer of Magical Socks

OK, I'll admit it. I have a real fondness for the Harry Potter series. I have all the US-version hardbacks, the British hardbacks, all of JK Rowlings' "Hogwarts textbooks, all the unabridged Jim Dale CDs, and a few of the British cassette series. And the movies on DVD. And the soundtracks on CD. And some action figures. And a mug. And a Harry Potter tablecloth. And maybe some other odds and ends, but, well, never mind. I like the series, and can hardly wait until July when the next movie and Book 7 appear.

So, seeing how often handknit socks are mentioned in the books, it's only natural that, being a sock knitter myself ... well, you can see where this is heading. I decided to have a Summer of Magical Socks.

Actually, it was my Sockret Pal Beth E who gave be a push in the Harry Potter sock direction. She generously made me a gift of Sunshine yarn's Gryffindor, which I have now completed as the first in my Summer of Magical Socks. And here they are:
The marker is a tile wine glass charm that I found on eBay. I glued ribbon around it and waterproof-varnished the whole thing to stand up to washing.

So that leads me to the rest of my Harry Potter yarns for the Summer of Magical Socks.

Since Beth E's Gryffindor yarn got me started, I've managed to find more colorways for the other three houses from DarmaFey, and scored some Chinese Fireball Dragon and some Phoenix from Sunshine. You can see that I've already gotten a good start on the socks from DharmaFey's "Sorted into Ravenclaw" yarn. (And HP fans will note that the Ravenclaw colors in the tablecloth fabric are not canon: "real" Ravenclaw colors are blue and bronze. Obviously this fabric is a result of Muggles in the textile industry.)

Here are the Chinese Fireball Dragon yarn and the Phoenix yarn. I found a dragon charm and a phoenix charm on eBay (where else???) and made stitch markers with them. I painted the phoenix gold.

And, also at the urging of Beth E (do ya think she might have me under an Imperius Curse??? ) ;) I joined the Summer of Socks group. Very few rules -- I like that. And it meshes very well will my own summer knitting plans, except that I have already started! :)