Road trip for the Castoffs!  We all packed up and carpooled down to Mary’s house overlooking beautiful Wood’s Bay on Flathead Lake.  Mary’s house is lovely and the views cannot be beat!  We all felt so peaceful and lucky to be able to share good food, good company and good knitting.  Thank you Mary.

Room with a view - and what a view!

Of course, the Castoffs always eat well and drink well so we enjoyed a potluck brunch with quiche, lots of summer fruit, cheese and bread and yummy pineapple cake.  Aah, all the senses were sated.

Quiche, Carol? Why, thank you!

We sat on the deck and ate and talked.  It was so pleasant that we almost forgot to knit!  But wait – all those projects were waiting for us inside, so we went in the house to see what everyone was up to, knitwise.  Linda had brought two finished projects for us to ooh and aah over.  Linda said that she was so glad to join our group because it gave her motivation to finally finish some projects left undone.  Uh-huh, Linda, we ALL have those unfinished projects lying around.  Thanks for sharing them with us – and for giving us all some great ideas for new projects of our own.

Linda's fabulous felted tote!

Linda liked this shawl so much that she is keeping it for herself!

Francy showed us a very cute hat that she knitted for a friend’s baby.  I especially love the knitted flower on the i-cord at the top.

Soooo cute!!

Francy also sent me photos of the sweater-coat that she finished for her daughter Betsy.  It is stunning and her daughter loves it!  We all sweated through each stitch with her, so we decided to ALL take a little credit even though Francy did all the work.  Great job, Francy!

Great display table, Francy!

Hey, it matches the dog!

We all worked on our projects quietly for a while and then Carol introduced the WHINE OF THE WEEK.  She pulled out her glittery seed-stitch scarf and expressed her dissatisfaction with the way it was turning out.  “I made a lot of mistakes.  The edges are wavy and Marsha, what is this?”  She pointed to a section of the scarf and I put on my glasses to get a good look.

“It’s a hole,”  I said.

Well, that sealed the deal, I’m afraid.  Carol REALLY wanted to rip it out then.  We tried to convince her that a first attempt at a new pattern doesn’t always go perfectly, but I think we’ll have to wait and see if she can shrug it off, so to speak, or give in to frustration and start over.  It would be a shame, because we all think it looks pretty good the way it is.

This day, Carol was working on cabled fingerless mitten that are turning out beautifully.  Marylane was working on her tote that is almost ready to be felted and from the photo, Francy was giving great advice.

Happy knitters, peaceful location.

Joan was working on mittens also and Michele was knitting the kid’s poncho and waiting for her husband, Joel, to motor over in the knitting boat to pick her up down at the dock.  Before the summer is out, the Castoffs just might have to wrangle the knitting boat to go for a ride.  What do you say, Joel?  In the meantime, we had a great time.  We can’t wait for Julie to get over her cold and for Leslie to bring us photos of the BIG EVENT that happened in her life last week.  Her daughter Sienna got ENGAGED!  Yippee!  We are almost as excited as Leslie.

I’ll leave you now with a couple of candids of our fun meeting at Mary’s.  Happy knitting!

Looks like Michele is making an appeal to the knitting goddess on behalf of Joan's mittens.

Great friends, great day.

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