A smaller version of the Castoffs met at Leslie’s house on a beautiful, sunny and warm late summer day.  We feasted on baguettes and homemade salsa and drank lovely wine.  Thank you, Leslie.  Julie, Mary, Michele, Leslie, Marsha and a returning friend, Deb came up and knitted and talked about a variety of subjects including stitch increases, hot flashes, children and grandchildren and more.

Michele brought her nearly-finished poncho that is so soft and pretty that any little girl would love it.  She is still working on the hood, but I sneaked in a picture.

Soft and pretty hoodie poncho.

Speaking of little girls, Leslie is knitting her granddaughter Grace a pair of legwarmers with little ruffles at the tops (or bottoms, I don’t know top from bottom since I’ve never had a pair of legwarmers – not even in the 80’s!).

I can just imagine a fat little leg dancing around in this.

She makes the ruffle by increasing each stitch for several rows.  Cute.

Julie brought her top-down hoodie that she knit for her son’s girlfriend, Kayla.  I have the pattern and can’t wait to knit it for myself.  It turned out great, Julie!

You noodlehood, you.

I brought the back of my Zen coat that I’m totally in love with – and it’s not even half finished.  It has a box pleat that I’ll sew into the top of the back following the slip stitches and purl stitch lines that I knitted in.  I’ve been working on it all weekend and now I’m working on the right front and sleeve that are all one big piece.

I love it so much, I can't see straight -- or at all.

Weekends full of sports games contribute to my knitting addiction.  Two things I love most – football (or golf) and knitting.

Mary came in and I caught her with Julie talking about this and that.

With affection: Noodlehead and Knitwit.

These two have turned into fearless knitters.  Julie is the queen of sweaters and mittens and Mary has gone from, uh, holey scarves to fabulous felted purses and mittens.  I am so proud of you both!  Please don’t  hit me when you see the captions.

Mary is knitting a pair of mittens that she is going to felt.  She had a question about increasing stitches that turned into a huge discussion.  Julie advised her to knit below a stitch and then into the same stitch to increase.  “You’re a genius!” Mary said.  Michelle and Marsha advised her to knit into the front AND the back of the same stitch to avoid holes.  This seemed to work better.  “Dagnabit, I’m not a genius!”  Julie said.  Well, we think you’re pretty special, Jules.

Sometimes there's a thin line between being a genius and being a noodlehead.

I loved what Mary said about her dilemma with increasing stitches: “I have an issue and I don’t have a tissue.”  Well, we don’t have any tissues so you’re on your own with the issues.  Not really.  Your knitter friends will always be there to help you with the issues.  In fact, we’ll give you so many options that you may NEED a tissue.

Increase this way! No, increase that way! Dagnabit, where are the tissues?

Mary also brought the purse that she felted last week.  She told us that she went to the fabric store to pick out a button for her purse and fell in love with some beautiful and groovy wooden buttons that she thought would pick up the green in the purse.  Wellll, she didn’t take the purse with her.  Do you know what’s coming?  Do you?

Uh, Mary. I don't believe that there's any green IN your purse. Nice buttons though!

Deb and Michele are trying to find the green in Mary's purse. Huh? No green?

We will be meeting at Leslie’s again next week due to scheduling conflicts in Marsha’s life.  Thanks Leslie!  I know that we’ll have just as much fun next week because we are so fabulous!!  And such great knitters!!  Okay, I’ll stop now.

We had an all-time record for the Castoffs at Michele’s house – 11 of us, one of whom was Francy’s daughter Betsy visiting from Minnesota.  We were happy to see her after watching her sweater take shape.  Some of us remembered her from her growing-up days here in Kalispell and some were meeting her for the first time.  Come back anytime, Betsy!  Francy is going on a cruise in the Eastern Mediterranean, so we will miss her for a MONTH!  Waaah!  We’ll keep in touch through the blog, though, so have fun, Francy, and think of us.

Betsy admiring Marylane's felted bag.

Francy brought us a Lithuanian apricot cake that was delicious and flaky.  I think that Betsy brought it from a favorite bakery in Minneapolis.  Wherever it came from, thanks you two, it was great!  Francy has been making more kiddie’s caps that are so cute.  I made so many kiddie gifts last Christmas that I’ve made a vow to be selfish and knit for me, me, me for a while.  Ah, that felt good.  Sometimes you just have to think of yourself first, right?

Francy with her cute caps.

It was a scarf kind of day.  Julie was knitting a scarf out of self-striping yarn.  “Wow, how does the yarn know when to change colors?”  Mary wanted to know.  Well, Mary, the yarn just has to be smarter than the knitter, I guess.

Julie and her smart-yarn scarf.

Leslie brought her finished scarf that was knit on size 3 needles.  “Never again!!”  she vowed.  It took a long time and much swearing, but the scarf turned out beautifully.  Was it worth it, Leslie?  Of course it was.

It was worth all the effort! Beautiful!

I brought my finished seed stitch scarf that I really enjoyed making .  The pattern was soothing and lasted through several football games one weekend.  That could be my gauge of contented knitting – how easily I can knit and watch the game at the same time.

Say, is that mad gleam in your eye for knitting or for football? Or both?

We had an activities day at the Castoffs meeting.  Mary brought her finished bag to felt at Michele’s house (Mary has a front-loading washing machine and didn’t want a coin purse instead of a handbag).  I got some ‘before and after’ pictures of the bag which miraculously turned out the way it was supposed to.  Miraculous for me – I’ve never been through the felting process and it was amazing to see how easy it was.

Before

After!

I like it!  And I have a top loader!

We had another surprise activity.  Michele passed a hat with numbers for us to choose and she drew one corresponding number for a DOOR PRIZE!  How exciting!  Francy won and opened a little package that turned out to be a DORK PRIZE!  It was a tangled heap of eyelash yarn that Michele was using to finish up the fringe on her little poncho.  Well, if you’ve ever worked with eyelash yarn, you’ll know that it loves itself so much that it gloms up and the only way to resolve the glominess is to THROW IT AWAY!  Thus, the dork prize.  Michele has enough to finish the poncho’s hood, but Francy gracefully offered her heap if it was ever needed.

DORK PRIZE!!

The poncho that Michele is knitting is almost done – only the hood is left to go.  We’ll see if the devil eyelash yarn is tamed or drives Michele over the edge.

The eyelash yarn looks fairly benign here, doesn't it?

We are so sad to say goodbye to Joan and Linda.  Joan will be going back to her home in Arizona for the winter and Linda is moving to Denver to be near her son.  We have had so much fun getting to know them over the summer and we look forward to next summer when they can rejoin us for more knitting, laughter, wine and companionship.  We’ll miss you both!  Happy knitting!

Next week our group will be a lot smaller – Joan and Linda will be on to new adventures, Francy will be headed for the cruiseship and Marylane will be thinking about a book sale and a trip to Boston.  I’m so glad that they will all be able to keep up with our going’s on online.  I’ll give a shoutout to you all every week.  Bon Voyage, knitters.

Keep on knittin', Joan!

We met at Julie’s house and, boy, there were a lot of Castoffs there!  Nine, plus a special guest who I’ll tell you about later.  We all had ongoing projects: Carol is working on plum wristlets.  She loved her fingerless mittens so much that she decided to make another pair.  They are sooo pretty.  Linda told me that the pattern is at the RAVELRY site.  My friend Kathy had told me about the site, so I’ll have to check it out.

Yummy plum wristlets!

Joan is having a BALL (get it?) working and reworking her mittens.  We are so sad that Joan will be leaving us to go back to Arizona at the end of September.  “Will you tell us if you finish the mittens,” I asked.  “You’ll never know if I do or not, so I’ll say yes.”  Oh, Joan, just lie to us.  We can’t wait until next summer when you come back!

Havin' a ball! When in Arizona, use cotton yarn.

Leslie is NEARLY finished with her teeny, weeny size #3 needle scarf.  She held up a miniscule amount of yarn, “That’s all I have left!!”  She sounded so happy.  It’s going to be absolutely beautiful.

Teeny-tiny yarn, HUGE amount of work!

Michele and Mary came in together – so happy to be out of school for the day!  Mary is knitting giant mittens to felt and Michele is still working on the Magic Loop socks.  She conquered the holes problem and now she can help me!  Yay!

TG tomorrow IF!

GIANT FELTED MITTENS in the works.

NO HOLES! Yippee!

We had one of those days when everyone wanted to talk and talk and talk and I found that the things we talked about were…well, imponderables.  We talked about unanswerable questions like: Why are there two bathtubs in the Cialis commercials?  Shouldn’t that couple be SHARING a tub?  Why would dipping a pumpkin’s stem in milk make the pumpkin grow bigger?  Or would it?  These questions brought forth a lot of intense knitting and frowning, but no clear-cut answers.  Mary wins the prize for “strange subjects brought up over knitting” however and she even brought a visual aid.

Maybe this has something to do with the separate bathtubs.

Castoffs meetings are never dull, that’s for sure.

We had a special guest that came in at the end of the meeting and grabbed up needles and yarn, eager to catch up with the rest of us.

Menopause is just hell, isn't it, Brianna?

We can’t wait to see how the sweater comes out.  Hmmm.

Julie is working on a purple hooded top-down sweater and I begged the pattern off her.  I find myself gravitating towards big projects.  Sure hope I live long enough to finish everything that I start!

Hoody tunic - top down!

Well, we ate Julie’s zucchini cookies and drank some lovely wine  (my favorite of the day was Red Bicyclette Merlot) and enjoyed the late summer weather.  We talked about at least two very good books, ENEMY WOMEN and RIVER OF DOUBT.  With a room full of teachers and librarians, reading is probably our second favorite occupation.

I’ll leave you with some more candids of our meeting.  Don’t stick the pointy ends where they would hurt!

Marylane, Carol and Joan busy at work.

Jules, Leslie, Linda and Marylane posing for that damned annoying bloggist.