I love Thursdays. I love meeting with my knitting friends. And, I love our new meeting place at the church. Linda, Deb and I were alone, but we got a lot of talking and some knitting done. Several of the Castoffs are out of town – Joan relocated to Arizona for the winter, Mary to Arizona for a visit, Francy to see her brand-new grandson, and Marylane to the Festival of the Book in Missoula. Leslie and Michele on to their meditation and yoga classes. Julie was at the lake looking at her new boat. We had thought that Carol would join us, but remembered that her parents are visiting from California. I can’t wait to hear about everyone’s adventures next week.
Francy sent a photo of the newest member of her family, Samuel Roland, with his parents, John and Heidi. Such a beautiful little family. Congratulations to them all. I foresee a lot of knitted items in little Sam’s future from his gran.
Sam with Dad and Mom.
Deb is going great guns on the sweater front – can’t remember if it’s the left or the right – but, after she had knitted for a while, she said, “This is all wrong.”
Gulp. The dreaded words that nobody wants to say. Unfortunately, it’s heard a lot in our Castoffs meetings. We come, we knit, we talk, we lose track of what we’re knitting. We despair. We rip out.
Deb showed me that when she picked up the sweater–after a long summer of not knitting–she thought she was reading the pattern correctly. Alas. The beautiful cable that crawls up the outside edge was facing inward to the wrong side of the sweater.
Everything was going so well – warm fire, hot latte, smooth knitting…
Right side of sweater, wrong side of cables.
The next thing I knew, Deb was ripping out the stitches. Rip, rip, rip. She decided to start again another day.
Knitting is hell sometimes.
Linda was still knitting BOTH of her dropped stitch scarves. It’s difficult to switch gears from lazy summer to industrious winter. She wondered out loud if the dropped stitch pattern is showing up the way she wants it to. The answer might be to RIP it out and use larger needles (or finer yarn). This seemed to be a ripping-out kind of day. Hmmm.
There really wouldn’t be much to rip out.
I’m happy to report that I didn’t need to rip out anything! Yay! I am nearly finished with the pink and purple purse for one of my great-nieces. While I was on a trip to Canada last week, I started another purse (for another great-niece) because we were driving through endless, flat wheat fields. It was a good reason to knit, so I got a lot done.
Both of these will be felted when finished.
That was it, Castoffs. We had a cozy, intimate time and look forward to our cold winter days next to the gas fireplace. Hope to see you next week, but in the meantime, keep those needles blazing and enjoy the beautiful fall colors.
