We met at Julie’s house. It was pouring rain when I walked up to her porch, huddling under my umbrella. When I left, there was no rain at all, so I left my umbrella, of course. It gave me a good excuse to return on Sunday morning when Julie and her husband Brian entertained my son Eli and me with talk and great coffee.
But I digress. At the Castoffs meeting, we were delighted to see Marylane’s sister, Joan, back with us for the summer. She came in with an ENORMOUS bag of wool scraps from the Pendleton factory – strips of wool fabric cut from the edges of the very large rolls of material. Joan had the idea to knit a pillow. Well, she had enough material to knit a mattress…king.
Joan...dreaming of turning chaos into order
Uh-oh, it's growing
Joan and Marylane immediately began rolling the strips into a ball…actually, several balls. Several BIG balls. What a team they make!
Marylane is being taken over by giant balls!! Hmm?
Now you have to know this about Joan. She knits. She doesn’t purl, she doesn’t YO, she doesn’ sk2p. She knits. Only. According to Joan, “With purling comes a lot of responsiblity.” A creed to live by. Good luck with the wool strips, Joan. We can’t wait to see what happens next.
Leslie had finished the seven bridesmaids’ scarves. Yay! Yippee! Oh, wait. Leslie’s daughter came to her and said the words that the mother of the bride dreads hearing: “Mom, I have something to tell you.” Uh-oh. Well, it wasn’t too bad. Sienna just wondered if her mother would knit ONE MORE SCARF for the photographer. Of course, said Leslie.
Of course I'll knit another one of these G-D scarves, my darling daughter. 🙂
What a mom. You’re the best, Leslie. We draped Leslie with ALL the ‘thick and thin’ scarves that she’s been working on since January. She looked like a great big exotic bird. Amazing. We are all in awe.
Wow. All finished! Almost...
Some of the rest of the Castoffs brought works-in-progress. Carol is almost finished with her baby blanket – only a few inches to go! It’s going to be a great grandma gift.
A beautiful blankie for a beautiful baby
Michele is working on her bathroom curtain – the second half of her bathroom curtain. It’s not easy working with hemp – no give in the yarn. I tried it one time and it takes some getting used to . But this is a wonderful airy, open pattern and it will look great with the other colors of the curtain.
And what's behind curtain #2, Michele?
Francy was working on a baby hat (or a dishcloth, I can’t remember), and Mary was deciding what to knit for the baby of a co-worker. Babies, babies. We’re surrounded by baby knitters.
Francy! What is it?
Julie wasn’t thinking about baby stuff. As a matter of fact, I don’t think she was thinking about much of anything. But isn’t she cute?
Hm. What are these women doing here?
To be fair, Julie had just finished a ball-band dishcloth that really turned out great. I like to take a time-out after a project, too.
Julie’s cat, Bombay, visited all of us as we knitted. Bombay usually doesn’t like people, but recently, she became deaf and maybe that made us all a lot more appealing. We are a noisy bunch, after all.
We are a little loud. Bombay accepts us in silence.
On Saturday some of us went to the Worldwide Knit in Public event in Kalispell. A lot of knitters attended as we migrated from venue to venue all day. I’ll post all of the photos that I took in a separate posting.’
Next week, the Castoffs will be on a road trip to Francy’s house out on the lake. I’ll be taking my own road trip to Colorado, so I’ll miss the party. Wahhh! But I know everyone will have a great time and I’ll miss them all. Have fun, Castoffs, and keep those needles flying!
