We have so many fun things in the works that …. well, I can hardly stand it! There. Just wanted to tell you. But that’s all I can tell you. Just know that we’re going to be having some fun new lines coming in in the next few months. Did I mention that I can hardly stand it! Hee! Ok. I will tell you that we have another HUGE order in with Seacoast (in both the Bamboo/Merino, which we had this week, and the Superwash Sock, which will be new to us.) Plus, other fun lines on the way – both re-stocking and new ones. If you ever miss out on a certain line, don’t worry. We will get it back in!

Speaking of the next few months, as planned, our Loopy Ewe Seasonal Sock Club will debut the first two weeks in May. The yarn is being dyed up right now (although I have four skeins of it here and boy, do I love it!) and the pattern is done and Lisa did such a great job on it. I can’t wait to send these boxes out to you! If you’re one of the 150 who got in, you can expect an email from us mid-April, with a few more details about it. (And if you’re one of the people who didn’t get in – we’ll expand it next year. I promise!)

Here’s the sock I’m making with the Louet Gems in Grape that I told you about. (Using my Celtic Swan sterling silver DPN’s which I love. Those will be back in stock late spring. Molly is working on them for us!) I’m finding that I mostly only knit on Sundays. Too busy during the week to sit and knit. I wish I could find a solution for that. My 5 basket tower of personal sock yarn stash buffet is overflowing. I really ought to count how many “socks to be” are in there. Or …. probably I just don’t want to know. I just keep adding to it and I like the look of it. A tower of inspiration.

Today’s recipe comes from my friend Michelle in California. Or, actually, it comes from her mom Ardith in Utah, via Michelle. You have to make these. They really are incredible. (And remember – when you make a special treat for your family, it buys you knitting time. As in, “Here! I made these for you! You enjoy them, and I’m going to go sit down and knit for awhile.”) The bonus with this recipe is that they’re caramels. They’re chewy and gooey. It’ll take them a while to eat them.

Ardith’s To-Die-For Caramels

2 cups sugar
2 cups white Karo syrup
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter, quartered
2 cups canned evaporated milk
1-2 tsp. vanilla
chopped nuts (optional)

Butter a large jelly roll pan, or multiple smaller pans. If using nuts, spread them out in the bottom of the pan. Combine sugar and Karo syrup in heavy non-stick saucepan. Stir with wooden spoon and cook to 240-244 degrees. Next, add butter pieces and evaporated milk alternately, while stirring. Cook until temperature is back up to 240 degrees. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Pour caramel mixture into pan and spread evenly. Let cool completely until firm. Cut into small rectangular pieces. Wrap each piece in wax paper (making sure the caramel is on the waxed side of the paper.) Twist the paper ends of each piece.

So back to the personal sock yarn stash buffet. Are you of the mindset that it’s fun to have lots of beautiful yarns in there to inspire you, or are you of the mindset that you’d rather just buy one or two skeins ahead of what you’ll be knitting? (I think I know the answer. After all, I see your orders!)

Sheri personalsockyarnstashgrewagainwhenLouetGemsarrivedhere.sigh.

Woot! The new yarns went up last night and I’m so excited about them! Go check them out. Lots of colors of Cider Moon. I LOVE this line. The yarn is unbelievable soft and I am so ready to knit some sportweight socks for a bit. (Gee – wouldn’t it be nice if I started in on some Christmas gifts this early?) There are so many colors in this batch that are “keepers” for me. June Carter, Bison, Silver Pine, Avocado, Casual Friday, and Victoria, to name just a few. (Have you ever known me to give a whole list of favorites like that? I really did try to narrow it down.) The colors are very deep. I’m hoping to have their fingering weight (Icicle) in in a few weeks, and I’ve already ordered more Glacier. You know, it reminds me a lot of Sweet Georgia’s Speed Demon.

Seacoast Handpainted Yarns came in as well, in the bamboo/merino/nylon blend. You need to check out the photos of this line. The color combinations are very unique and just gorgeous. My favorites in that line are Butte, Chocolate & Caramel, Cherry Fizz and Spring Storm. And it’s an interesting yarn base – I’m looking forward to working with it. I think the combination of bamboo, merino and nylon will be very comfortable. Nice mix for a summer sock. Who is going to be the first one to finish socks with it and get them up in our photo galleries?

New colors in All Things Heather went up last night, too. Four new merino/tencel blends (I like JellyBean) and twelve of the regular sock blend. I like Biker Chick, Frankie, and Oceania in the new ones. Sunrise and Sunset remind me of my Frank socks a little bit! I think Heather is the queen of fun sock yarn names. Biker Chick was pink and black – perfect. (I say “was”, because it’s gone already.) She’s one of the dyers for our sock club, and wait till you see what she’s calling the yarn she is doing for us! Heather is busy dyeing up some solids in her sock line and her Merino/Tencel line, and we’ll get that in a couple of weeks. I have always really liked the way her solids dye up.

Speaking of solids, the Louet yarns went up last night as well. We have 19 in the fingering weight and 20 in the sport weight. (There are 17 fingering weight colors on backorder. We will eventually have every color – hopefully soon.) These are perfect for all of the patterns in the Favorite Socks book that we all seem to have purchased! My current sock-in-progress is from that book. I’m using the Grape colorway and making the cover socks. I can see that knitting with solids in really fun patterns is going to be a bit addictive. Has anyone else found that? Especially when I see all of the gorgeous solids that Louet has. These are true solids – the color is the same throughout. (Compared to a semi-solid, where the intensity shifts throughout. I like those, too.) Who else is working on socks from this book?

How are your Frank/Martha socks coming along? Remember, our Loopy Q1 Challenge is to knit a colorway that is different from what you usually choose. Not sure what I mean? Check out this blog entry that tells all about it. We have the Quarterly Challenge gallery up, and many of you have already posted. But even more of you have emailed to say, “I’m working on them!” (ahem. Myself included.) You have until the last day in March to post your entry on the gallery. I’m giving away two $25 Loopy Gift Certificates – one will be drawn randomly from all pictures posted, and the second will be awarded as the Reader’s Choice Award. We’ll have voting the first week in April, and the socks with the most votes will earn that person a $25 Loopy Gift Certificate. (Can the same person win the random drawing AND the Reader’s Choice? Sure – why not? I’ll announce both at the same time, so as not to sway anyone!)

A new Zen String order arrived this afternoon. The new colors are gorgeous!! We’ll put those up sometime next week, because we’ve had enough for this week, don’t you think? There are other yarns scheduled to arrive soon, too. The fun never ends around here.

Sheri packingordersforyoualltodaysonoknittinggettingdone

Remember me telling you that I was having a fun visitor to The Loopy Room on Friday? It was none other than Miss Lime herself (of the famous Lime & Violet podcast). If you’re a regular listener, you know they have threatened to camp out on my front lawn (ha!). It turns out that St. Louis was on the way between Nebraska and Florida, which is the roadtrip that Miss Lime is taking. Of course she made a stop to The Loopy Room! (She brought her sweet dog Alex. Zoe was most un-amused and behaved in a less than gracious way. She hissed and growled at Alex.) It was fun to talk yarn and socks and knitting in person and she even got first pick of the new All Things Heather and Cider Moon Glacier yarns that have newly arrived. (Nope – not up on the website yet. Pictures have not been taken due to WH flying the coop. He’s back. He’ll be photo-ing tonight and tomorrow.) So – I did manage to talk Miss Lime into a photo for the blog. You know, pictures of those two are few and far between, so I was honored that she consented. (You can see her dog Alex trying to scoot behind her. We couldn’t get him to pose for the photo. I’m on the right in the photo, Miss Lime is on the left). Now I’ll just have to listen in on the podcast to see what she reports back about. (I did find myself saying, “Well, we’re doing “this” and “that” …. and working on “that” and “the other” – but don’t put that on the podcast yet – it’s still a secret!” a few times. Oooh – I hope she remembers.) Miss Violet? Now it’s your turn to come visit.

Girls Weekend was a lot of fun! We watched movies and did plenty of knitting and hung out. I’m so glad that Knitting Daughter still likes to hang out with me. I can’t get used to the fact that she’ll be off to college in a year and a half. That’s such a bummer. We were shopping on Friday and I said, “Oh, Honey. What am I gonna do without you to shop with when you go off to college??” and she said, “Mom! You say that every time we go shopping now!” sigh. Having them grow up and leave home is what is supposed to happen, right? It’s a good thing? It’s the way things are meant to work? I don’t like it. I made good progress on my Louet lace socks. Photo later in the week. (Half of our Louet order is due to arrive tomorrow and I’ll get those up asap. Might have a few new things up tomorrow night. Not that that is an announcement or anything. Heaven forbid.)

That’s all for today. Lots of order to pack this morning and it seems as if I’m always racing my postman!

Sheri sotellmewhatknittingYOUworkedonthisweekend

I don’t know about you, but I have KNITTING scheduled for my weekend. Wonder Husband has flown the coop (oh, he’ll be back) and Knitting Daughter and I have declared it a “Girls Weekend” for movies and knitting. Yeehaa! Actually, Wonder Husband is heading to Iowa to visit his mom and sister and since KD has to do the Starbucks barista thing on Saturday, we’re staying home. I’m working while she’s working, but other than that we have things lined up to watch while we knit. What a great weekend plan, right? I started (barely) a pair of socks from my new Favorite Socks book – the ones on the cover. I’m doing them in Louet Gems in an eggplant color, and so far, I love them. I’ll take a photo when there’s enough to photograph. Why Louet Gems? It’s the next big yarn line that we’re getting in! I ordered all 36 solid colors in the fingering weight, plus 20 colors in the Sport Weight, and it’s scheduled to arrive next week. (Some of the colors are on backorder – so we’ll get the rest in asap. I ordered LOTS of each color so that we wouldn’t run out!) With all of the lace knitting going on, I wanted more solid color options. (Although we do have great options in our Cherry Tree Hill solids, as well as the Regia solids, the Argyle solids, the Apple Laine solids, and the Regia Silks.) Speaking of the Regia Silks, did you see this very cool pattern in the latest issue of Knitty? Made with Regia Silk. I can’t wait to try it out.

We do have some new yarns in – not yet up on the website, as they’re waiting to be photo-ed – and I don’t know if I’ll ever announce a shop update again. HA! Well, ok. I will. It really was fun watching all of that go on on Monday night, but it did take me almost the whole week to recover from all of those orders. The mailman was so funny. We mailed them in three batches, but the middle day had the most. I went out to help him load his truck (did I tell you they upgraded the size of his mail truck a couple of months ago? Hmmm -wonder why?) Anyway, he said, “Well, are you going to beat your record number of packages today?” I said, “I have no idea. What’s my record?” and he told me what it was. (Hilarious that he keeps track.) He was so funny – seemed excited to learn that we had beat it by more than 20 packages that day. As I was walking in the house when we were done loading his truck, I heard him muttering the number under his breath and saw him shaking his head & laughing. I could just see him going back to the post office and having fun showing off that full truck. Here I thought he probably just tolerated this whole thing, but he actually acted like he was cheering us on and having a ball. He’s a good mailman.

Here’s the fun hat that I knit with our latest new yarn line – Cider Moon. I LOVE their yarn! We have big batches of both their Glacier (sport weight) and Icicle (fingering weight) coming in. The Glacier shipped to me this week, so that will be up as soon as we can get the pictures done. They have been just lovely to work with and we’re excited to have them at The Loopy Ewe. Who blogged about them? I was reading through some of your blogs (I really do read your blogs – and have a lot of fun doing that) and one of you had posted that your favorite two places to buy sock yarn were The Loopy Ewe and Cider Moon. Well, I clicked right over to Cider Moon and ordered myself a skein of their yarn and a pattern. It didn’t take but a second to realize that we needed their yarn here. But I can’t remember whose blog I was reading at the time. So if it was you – a big THANK YOU for introducing me to them!

Here’s my first sock out of Breezy by Perchance to Knit. If you missed out on that yarn this week, we do have another big order in with Susie. I’m hoping to have that in sometime in April. She’s waiting on more base yarn. For those of you who received that yarn in your orders – don’t you love it? You know how I have vowed to take very few skeins out of the orders that come in here. I really really do try to save them for all of you. But I had to have a Primarily from this latest batch. And – there are more that I will need from the next batch. Sorry.

In-house and popping up on the website next week: a new batch of All Things Heather (I love Jelly Beans and Sunrise), and Cherry Tree Hill’s new DK weight yarn. Also coming in any minute – the other half of our Scarlet Fleece order (the other colors that we didn’t have in this week’s update – although I have had to order these first colors again, as they’re pretty much sold out from this week already.) Also, our big order of the merino/bamboo yarns from Seacoast shipped this week and I can’t wait to get that in. The colors are gorgeous! Also due in soon – Interlacements Tiny Toes, more Schaefer, more J-Knits, more Panda Cotton and more Fleece Artist. There. You’ve all been notified about upcoming shop updates. That may be all I’m going to tell you, so keep checking in on the What’s New button on the website!

Cranberry Chinese Chicken Salad

1 head of lettuce
1 bag of cabbage mix
3 Tbl. sesame seeds
1 pck. Ramen noodles, broken up (don’t use flavoring packet)
1 cup dried cranberries
cooked chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces

Dressing:
1/4 cup oil
1/8 cup vinegar
3 Tbl. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. Accent
4 tsp. sesame oil

Brown noodles and sesame seeds in butter, stirring constantly. Chop lettuce into bite-sized pieces. Mix all ingredients. Add dressing just before serving.

Hope you have a great weekend. What will you be knitting?

Sheri you’llneverguesswho’scomingtovisittheLoopyRoominpersontoday-moreonMonday!

Well, it was fun to “see” everyone online last night. Thanks so much for popping by and for your patience. I was able to see how many were online at a given time, and …. well …. let’s just say that you all outdid yourselves between 8 and 9 pm. You slogged down the system, but at least it didn’t crash! What a night. It was like taking more than an average day’s worth of shoppers and orders and compacting them into that hour. 

I have had a few comments about the shopping cart system and how you can “lose” things in your cart. We don’t pull the products from inventory until someone actually checks out with them. Many of you put things in your cart and then sign off and leave them there for another day. And you LIKE being able to do that! If we pulled them from inventory when they went into carts, it would leave a whole lot of our inventory in limbo … waiting there in a cart, not sold, but not available for anyone else. On most days, it’s not an issue because the traffic at the site is steady but not over-the-top like it was last night. There usually aren’t people grabbing at everything that goes by. (And honestly – the biggest issue was the Sweet Georgia feeding frenzy. I know there were many of you who were trying to get these last skeins and there wasn’t much we could do about that. It was just crazy.) We will look into seeing if there is a way for you to have a few minutes grace period when it goes into your cart, but doesn’t keep the products in limbo as they relate to the website. We’re always looking for ways to make your experiences positive here, and we will continue to do that in the future. Our sincere apologies to those who were frustrated. Always feel free to email us when anything concerns you. We want to hear from you. (And to all of you who emailed and said it was fun and you had your adrenaline going and you think it’s wonderful that we keep bringing such fun stuff in – well, those emails just made our night. Thank you so much!)

Sheri nowbacktopackingalloftheseordersbecauseIknowyou’reanxioustogetthem!

I’m home! And I had a wonderful time! Boy, what weather. When we left on Thursday to head out to Colorado, our plane was delayed at takeoff (due to a missing fire extinguisher on board) and we just missed tornadoes here in St. Louis. Then when we got to Denver, it was blizzarding up in the mountains. The higher we went, the more the snow swirled. We arrived in three different cars, and one of them was wind-gusted into the concrete median and then sent spinning around and around across the highway. Miraculously, no one was hurt and no other cars around them hit them. They were about 20 minutes from the condo and made it there in one piece, just a little sore from the experience. Here is a photo of the ski slopes, taken from our deck. None of us skiied, but it was fun to watch people coming down the mountain. Keystone is one of the places that offers night skiing, so the slopes are beautifully lit up at night. (I night-skiied once. Never again. It’s FREEZING riding up on the lift at night!)

Here’s our annual group photo. We were missing two gals this year, but it was still a wonderful weekend. We decided to switch our gathering time to fall (when we can avoid snow and car accidents.) Still trying to figure out how to break it to the husbands that we’re planning on this fall for the next event, because of course we’re not waiting a whole year and a half to switch to fall of 2008. I brought back some great new recipes which I’ll make up and then share with you over the next few weeks. My family will love being the taste-testers!

Speaking of family, WH and KD did a great job of getting orders packed up and shipped off to you. I also have a wonderful assistant, who has been with me in another business for a long time and has recently been switched over to helping at The Loopy Ewe three mornings a week. Susan is GREAT and I was so thrilled when she agreed to add more work hours to her week in order to help me get all of these orders out to you every day in a timely manner.

Thank you for all of your wonderful birthday wishes!! Although I do have really really great friends, I must say that I have never had SO many birthday greetings at once before. That was so fun and I appreciate every single one of you who left a comment that day. I had a great day.

Tonight is the big shop update! Truthfully, we have new yarn orders coming in every single week this month (and probably next month, too). More new lines, more fun accessories, more surprises! I did want to share my thoughts on the yarn lines with you. I know we all joke about the fact that you have to be on top of our shop updates in order to get many of the yarns we put up. And that’s true for some of the lines. Our goal is to keep the “regular” yarn lines in stock most all of the time. (Once in awhile we get caught short because the orders from the company have taken longer than expected, or because they are backordered themselves.) So count on us having Cherry Tree Hill, Lorna’s Laces, Schaefer Anne and Lola, Regia, Online, Opal, Claudia Hand Painted, Crystal Palace, J-Knits, Fleece Artist and Jigsaw in all the time. We’re working on keeping Interlacements and Apple Laine in all the time, and have another awesome major yarn line that we will keep in stock in all colors – due to arrive in a couple of weeks. Stay tuned! With all of our wonderful indie-dyers – well, we have orders in with them ALL the time, but of course they can only dye up so much. (And we put in BIG orders, so it does take awhile for them to pull it all together for us.) When their orders come in, they do get sold very quickly. I’d love to get to the point where we can actually keep some of them in stock for longer than a couple of days. Just know that I always have orders in with them in an effort to continue bringing their lines to you. These include All Things Heather, Yarn Pirate, Posh, Zen String, sKNITches, Scarlet Fleece, and several more new ones that we already have on order for you. Again – stay tuned! If you’re a regular blog reader (and/or a Loopy Groupie) you are always the first to know when we get new things in for the shop.

Tonight’s update is scheduled for sometime between 8-9 pm (central time). It all depends on how long it takes me to enter and upload all of the information for you. It will all appear at once when we actually make it all go “live” for you. I can give you a hint on what to watch for, though, since it will exceed our four pages dedicated to “what’s new”. We have another batch of Loopy/Louise/Black Bart stitchmarkers going up, plus more Zecca (they are all so CUTE in this batch!), and 5 other accessories which are new to us here. We have new Zeldas and Zelda Grands going up. We have re-stocked the new Lorna’s Laces colors and will be putting those up. Half of the Scarlet Fleece Tubular x 2 colors have arrived and those will be up. (I love this photo that Josiane in Switzerland sent in of the Scarlet Fleece knit up. She says, “Scarlet Fleece is a wonderful yarn. Very very pleasant to knit, this tubular x 2 gives an extraordinary elasticity and exceptional regular stitches, I adore this yarn !!!) We also have our last Sweet Georgia order going up, more Apple Laine, more J-Knits, and one of our brand new indie-dyers – Perchance to Knit – going up. (Each Perchance to Knit Skein comes with a coordinating Swarovski crystal stitch marker – they are so gorgeous. Susie specializes in “rainbow” colors – I can’t wait for you to see them.) So be sure to pop by the shop tonight and treat yourself to some new things. Susan and I will be packing up your orders tomorrow just as fast as we can!

Sheri keepsendingyouryarn/accessoryideastous-
someofourbestproductshavecomefromyoursuggestions!