Happy Valentine’s Day, Castoffs! We met at Leslie’s house and it was all about the Chair! It’s really starting to come together now. Ever since we decided to yarnbomb a chair for the Loud at the Library fundraiser (just after the fundraiser last March, I believe) we have acted like we had all the time in the world. And for a while, we did. The summer took people away from home, so we said, “We’ll really get serious in the fall.” The fall came and went and then in the winter, we finally got planning underway and came up with some tentative ideas. THEN, we got a different chair (that we loved better) and all the planning had to begin again.

Now we have until March 6. This is where we all run screaming, with sharp sticks in hand.

I do have to say that it’s coming together, though. We have the big pieces planned and are only faced with the finishing touches. Here is our work in progress.

Poppy seat? Check! Arm covers? Check! Body on the floor? Check!

Leslie’s spider-webby covering for the chair back – not finished.

This gives you an idea of what the sun will look like against the webbing.

The sun has bling!

One more rung cover to go.

Vines will be crawling up the chair leg. We’re considering using a gold leaf or two.

I knew we were getting close to a permanent plan when Leslie suggested that we go through the stash box and take back whatever we brought. If some yarn isn’t claimed, we’ll donate it to the Camas Creek Yarn shop to use for their charity knitwork.

We’ll be glad to stop lugging that box ‘o yarn from house to house!

Amazingly, some women did bring their projects, finished and -un. Deb is knitting a hat that we all saw a couple of weeks ago in its infancy. Looking good, Deb.

Almost finished!

Francy brought the finished sweater for Grace – very cute! Francy spent most of the meeting rolling around on the floor sewing on chair rung covers. Thanks, Francy! I couldn’t have gotten back up.

Grace’s sweater.

Marylane finished some fingerless mittens. I need to make some of these. They’re quick and easy.

Oh, ML, you’re adorable!

Well Castoffs, we’re coming down to the wire. Next week, we meet at Carol’s house. I’m going out of town, so I’ll miss the final crunch, but when I get back, we’ll have only a week to go before we have to say adios to our lovely chair. I admit to feeling a little separation anxiety.

Until we meet again, keep those needles blazing and have a wonderful week.

Six of us met at Linda’s house and it turned out to be all CHAIR. We heard today (three days after the meeting at Linda’s) that the chair needs to be finished by the second week in March. That means we have about five weeks to get our planning done and implemented, and turn in the Chair. Gulp. We did get quite a bit of planning done at Linda’s house, and all of us could see the big picture…finally. It’s going to be fabulous.

Linda graciously fed us fruit, truffles and wonderful hummus chips that we couldn’t keep our hands off of. And wine, of course.

Almost too pretty to eat… almost.

Our queen of calorie counters, Julie, whipped out her Weight Watchers conversion tool to see how dangerous the chips were. Da da, da da, da da. (This is supposed to heighten the suspense). The chips turned out to be not so bad at all. So we all ate more.

Let’s see…calories, check…fat, check…fiber, check…OK! Clear to eat!

Coincidentally, Julie was the only one to bring a non-Chair item to knitting this week. She’s knitting some very cool socks using Deborah Norville’s yarn, Serenity. Pretty.

Sockies!

So, on to the Chair. Linda and Carol had taken the ‘sun’ shopping to see about buying it some bling. They ended up with dark bugle beads to sew into the rays of the sun and in the arch of the top. It’s subtle, but effective.

Not easy to see, but the sun has bling.

We talked a lot about leaves for the vine. Leslie and Linda are working on leaves – yarn leaves, wire leaves, embroidery and wire leaves. I can’t wait to see the leaves. Linda brought some ivy leaves that I loved, but I’m not sure if they’ll make the cut.

These are beautiful.

More leaves on the seat. These leaves on  a vine are going to be great.

We all got our assignments: leaves, strips for rungs, lace covering for behind the sun, more i-cord. I can’t wait to see what we have to put together next time.

As we were ready to leave, Mary asked to use Linda’s yarn swift to wind yarn for her slippers. She and Linda were struggling with a tangle and winding yarn as quickly as they could. I couldn’t resist taking a couple of shots.

The big tangle.

I want one – but since three of the Castoffs have one, I probably don’t need one.

Next time we meet at Leslie’s house, so bring your assignments and your design thinking-cap . We’ll kick it into a higher gear and get this Chair finished! Funny, but we’re already mourning not having the Chair to work on and it’s not even finished yet. Well, until it is, keep those needles blazing, Castoffs. See you next week.

The Castoffs met at Marylane’s house on a cloudy winter’s day and were greeted with something new – Lemoncello! It’s an Italian liqueur that a friend distilled and it made quite an impact. Marylane also served us mushroom bread – yummy – and assorted wines. I’ll just say that we were happy little knitters.

Cheers!

Leslie especially got into the spirit. We spent most of the time discussing the Chair and trying to plan colors and designs to best set it off.

Hey! It was just that kind of meeting. And that kind of week.

As I mentioned, the Chair was topmost on our minds… someone counted the weeks until the Library fundraiser and we all felt a little jolt of panic. EEK! WE HAVE ONLY SIX WEEKS! While that might sound like a lot of time, it really isn’t, because we only meet to plan once a week. We tried out several ideas:

Linda’s triangles with pewter buttons…

We like this idea. It looks good with the poppy seat.

Strips of ‘sky’ behind the sun…

Blue strips behind the sun at the top. We were missing Julie’s strip of blue.

Teal coverings for part of the arms…

Coming together…

And green wraps for the rungs at the bottom…

There are two other rungs to coordinate. Pretty designs, though.

Michele joined us after her yoga class and suggested that we make a ‘vine’ of i-cord to wrap from the bottom to the top around one side of the chair. This opened a whole other discussion. How big should the i-cord be? 4 cast-ons? 6 cast-ons? 5 – yeah – 5 cast-ons! At least, I think that’s what we decided. By this time, I’d had too much wine and lemoncello.

Please use your imagination on this VINE.

Linda REALLY got into the discussion about vine size. Apparently, size DOES matter. She even gave us a visual illustration of how big one of the leaves should be – not too big to dwarf the vine, but not too small to look like a blob instead of a leaf.

All I can say is “Oh, my god, Linda! You go, girl!”

Amazingly, some Castoffs had actually knitted something besides Chair parts. Marylane was taking a class at Camas Creek and knitted a beautiful cabled mitten – second one to follow.

Love the cables and the wool feels soft and warm.

Mary was knitting sweaters for her grandchildren and is using the cutest pattern with Lion Brand washable chunky yarn.

This will look adorable on Moses.

We missed Julie and Deb but will catch them up on the Chair at Linda’s house next time we meet. Until then, Castoffs, enjoy this mock spring that we’re having and keep those needles blazing!