Marsha’s deck – September 3, 2009

We met on Marsha’s deck on Thursday afternoon under cloudy skies with some wind but the weather cooperated and we had a lovely meeting. I (Marsha) finally finished my short-sleeved Henley sweater and everyone insisted that I put it on.

Marsha's blue Henley sweater.

Leslie came in and shrieked “That is the most un-homemade sweater I’ve ever seen!!” I took that as a huge compliment. Thank you, Leslie. Speaking of, Leslie told us all about her daughter’s proposal. We all are thrilled with her good news.

I had made a pound cake and Eli made salsa, so we had the food groups covered, what with the wine and lemonade and chips. So all we had to do was to keep the yellow jackets away from everything. Unfortunately, the little buggers were all over our food. Julie was particularly blessed with insect life. First, one dive-bombed into her wine:

Come on in, the Merlot is fine!

Then another and another committed self-immersion, but Julie persisted in pulling them out until she had quite a collection on her plate.

I think they enjoyed the pound cake almost as much as Julie.

Thankfully the wind came up and kept them away. Although, after everyone had gone home, Eli poured a glass of Riesling and a yellow jacket slid into his glass. Hmmm. Glad he got the last glass.

It must be fall. Carol and Francy are knitting fingerless gloves and mittens, respectively.

These gloves are great, and we all loved the yarn.

Winter must be around the corner. A whole lot of mitting going on.

Francy’s matching mittens and hat look beautiful. I think they are Christmas gifts. We all think that Carol should keep these gloves for herself. They look great on her!

I want some of these!

Linda and Michele are both working on socks. Linda’s are striped and very colorful.

Great striped socks.

Michele introduced the WHINE OF THE WEEK with her socks. She is trying a new pattern that is worked toe-up, but she keeps getting holes as she decreases stitches. She is following the instructions, but still has HOLES. Grrrrrr. The rest of the socks are worked using a “magic loop” method. I had an explanation of the method in a magazine (with photos). It uses long circular needles, but the work is pushed up onto the needle tips in between rounds. I want to use this method myself, so I hope Michele is having some success in figuring it out! I’ll have a photo next time, I hope. It really is frustrating when you follow the instructions faithfully, but still have a problem, like with HOLES. This is more than a WHINE, right Michele? I had a whine of my own. When I ripped out some of my top-down purple sweater, I put the yarn back on the needles twisted. Sooo, I had a funny twisted row that I knew I’d have to rip out again. Michele explained to me how to make sure my stitches were on correctly – it was something about the cowboy’s legs are thrown over the needle (the horse) with the right leg forward. I got it, even though everyone else laughed at Michele’s illustration. I’ll have to remember the right leg forward rule when I rip out any other rows (which I’m sure I will).

Leslie worked on her little scarf, Marylane worked on her yellow sweater and Julie was agonizing over a cable stitch headband that refused to go the way she wanted. We all knitted, talked, ate and drank and brushed away pesky insects. It was a wonderful afternoon.