The Castoffs met at my house today and LOOK AT ME!  I’m actually posting the blog before the last glass of wine is empty in my little knitter’s hand.  Well, OK, maybe I did pour one more after everyone left, but who’s counting?  My talented son Eli made bruschetta and tapanade for us to eat and we did him proud.  Thank you Eli!  The Castoffs love your food.

A Feast

We all trickled in; first Leslie and Michele, then Carol and Julie, next Mary and Deb.  Almost everyone was excited to have only one day left of work before spring break – Julie works for the County library and I’m gloriously retired (although I’m subbing in the high school library tomorrow).  Francy and Marylane are still traveling.  We miss them.  Please come home!

Eli, we really liked the bruschetta and tapanade!

Michele must have really liked knitting my sock last week, because she started on a pair of her own with beautiful, soft cotton/silk/rayon yarn.  I love the feel of this yarn and I love that she decided to skip the cable pattern and just knit a rib pattern all the way up the sock.  I’ll have to remember that in future sock patterns.

Love this yarn!!

I haven’t knitted anymore on my sock, but I will hopefully work on it this week.  I am knitting a boucle top-down sweater but today I noticed that I have dropped a stitch…about three inches ago…sh*t.  I’ll try to pick it up, I guess.  It’s very irritating.

Aaaeeewww! A fatal flaw!

Leslie suggested that I sew a butterfly over the HOLE made by my dropped stitch.  Mary suggested that I put a pin over it but only if it’s in the front.  I think I’ll just sew it up and pretend it never happened.

Julie has two projects going – a vest with the most wonderful, soft yarn (Natura).  Michele was giving her some advice although I wasn’t sure why – Julie is a very experienced ‘garment’ knitter.

If we lean a little more to the left...it might look okey-dokey

Julie is also knitting a pillow cover with some linen yarn in a great looking lattice pattern.  I love it!  I’m beginning to wonder if I have enough life left in this old bod to knit all the things I want to knit and read all the books I want to read.  Nah.  Probably not.  But I’m planning to have a lot of fun trying until I go to that great knitting store in the sky.  Uh, knitting store/bookstore…that’s my idea of paradise.

Hey, recline on this, envy-mongers

Leslie was knitting ‘thick and thin’ scarf #4 for her daughter’s bridesmaids.  Keeping with the bhurka theme, here is Leslita with the black and gray number.

Leslita with scarf #4. Get that needle out of her hand, quick!

I took a closeup of this scarf, but like a chameleon, it took on the coloration of the table.  Gee, I wish I could do that.  But not with yellow.

Wait, I thought it was black...

I made the fatal mistake of showing my FRIENDS the yarn that I’m using for my sis-in-law’s afghan.  Well, it’s not a good idea to mix wine, vivid imagination and oddly colored yarn with the Castoffs, as I found out.  Oh, yeah, documentation AND availability to a blog doesn’t help either.  The yarn is an unfortunate color that lends itself to a whole lot of sight gags.  This is the best I’ve seen lately.

Uh, afghan #2

Deb was especially creative with the pooooooooop jokes.  Thank you, Castoffs.  I’ll be knitting this afghan for a long time.  And thinking about it a lot longer.

Michele was knitting a belt using some shiny, pretty, unforgivingly non-stretchy yarn.  I love, love, love the colors.

Great yarn for a belt

Deb is a tennis coach for the next six weeks, so she came straight from the court and didn’t bring her knitting.  I think she had just as much fun, though, watching us knit…and commenting on the poopy colored yarn.   Mary had her polar bear scarf project, but her head is in Arizona where she is going for spring break in a few days.  Bon voyage, Mary.  We’ll miss you for a couple of weeks.  Have fun!

Hello, is that Arizona calling? Somebody needs a vacation

Next week, we may not…sob, sob…meet because a lot of us will be out of town.  However, I am willing to meet anyway because I’ll be here!  So, if any of you Castoffs want to get together, give me a call.  The week after next, April 8, we meet at Julie’s house.  I can’t wait to see what you all have been up to in the meantime.  And, no Mary, I probably won’t have the afghan done…or even started.  You’ll just have to put up with weeks and weeks and weeks of me knitting it.  Have a great spring break, Castoffs!

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