Well most of the skeins of Cherry Tree Hill’s new Sockittome are packed up and off to your houses. I know it sold out quickly since putting it up late Wednesday night, but we could only get 100 skeins in this test run. They’re doing another small initial run at the end of June and we have more reserved in that batch, so it will be in again in a couple of weeks. I really like the new base. It’s very similar to another line that we carry and that you all have been fans of. It was fun to be able to offer you some of the very first skeins of a new sock line from one of our tried and true companies! We will always watch for great opportunities like this that we can pass on to you, whether it be new yarns, or accessories, or whatever. There are several more new sock yarns coming out from some of our other “tried and true” companies this summer - just know that we’re already on top of that for you.

It sounds like Loopy is going to be traveling far and wide in the next three months. (Why, oh why, didn’t I stipulate that I had to come along as the official photographer? Next year I’ll know better.) I think all of the places that were mentioned in the blog comments and emails I have had sound like fun! And remember - even if you’re not traveling somewhere else this summer, there are fun things to show Loopy in your own hometown. We have customers in all 50 states, and 42 countries, at last count, so those are a lot of interesting places for Loopy to explore. Thanks for joining in on the fun and playing along with us.

It has been so nice having College Guy and Knitting Daughter home this summer. (Although KD keeps leaving to make lattes and mochas down the street.) Did I tell you that College Guy aka Web Guy turned in a proposal to have The Loopy Ewe be a practicum for credit this summer for his Computer Science major? They said yes and I am thrilled. He has already made so many changes for us (most that make things easier and quicker on this end, but he has some cool things planned for your end, too!). Do you have any website suggestions you’d like to pass on to him? Now if we could only figure out how to get photos taken and color corrected faster. We’re bringing so much yarn in every day that the “to be photo-ed so it can go up on the website” corner is out of control. (Ok. It’s way bigger than a corner. You could build a fort out of all of those cases of yarn in waiting.) But we’ll keep working through it and adding more for you week by week.

Last night while we were packing orders, KD pointed out something funny. All of our order numbers are the date, followed by 4 randomly assigned numbers/letters or combination of the two. Like: B5E7 or S3RL or APQZ. Last night, there was an order that started out: 070607 (that means the year - 07, the month - 06, the date it was placed - 07) and the random 4 combination that followed made the order number come out like this: 070607-DEAD. Yikes! So here’s a little assignment - when you get an order from us this week, check and see if this one was yours. If you find it, email me and I will have a LIVE-ly gift for you, just for fun! (Hmm - I really should pay more attention to how those randomly come out. There are a lot of 4-letter combinations that would not be good!)

Today’s recipe is one that I made for breakfast this morning, just so that I could share the recipe with you today. Well, that, and because we haven’t made them in awhile and I was in the mood. We had these growing up (mostly on Saturdays) and we always loved them. Healthy? Not in the least. Delicious? Mmmmelt-in-your-mouth delicious.

Doughnut Puffs

1-2 tubes of refrigerator biscuits
powdered sugar
oil

Put 1+ cups of powdered sugar into a new paper lunch bag. Cut each biscuit in half. Fry in oil until golden on each side (don’t make the oil too hot or the outside will brown and the inside will not be cooked.) Using tongs, transfer each doughnut puff into the paper bag (about 4 at a time) and shake them up so that they get completely covered with the sugar. Remove from bag and eat while they’re warm. Generally, the whole family will be in the kitchen, willing to take them off of your hands as soon as you pull them out of the bag. That’s when they taste the best. When you get to the end of 1 tube of biscuits, you’ll say, “Should I make this other tube?” and they will unanimously vote yes.

Sheri workingonmyDuetssockthisweekendbecausethatyarniscominganydaynowwoohoo!
What’syourcurrentsock-on-the-needles?

You probably noticed some Loopy postcards that were in some of the photos from the weekend. Here’s the one I took of my friend Janice, to prove that he went with us to Ohio. We have a special “Take Loopy on Vacation” contest that will go from now until September 1st. Here’s what the back of the postcard says:

“Loopy wants to see the world and meet new people this summer. Take him on vacation, or show him the sights in your hometown, or let him in on your family barbecue! Pose with this Loopy postcard in front of fun places and/or with interesting people, and then submit your photos to the “Loopy’s Summer Vacation” photo gallery at www.theloopyewe.com. On September 1st, we’ll award Loopy Gift Certificates for “farthest destination”, “most famous person that Loopy met” and a few other fun categories (as well as general drawings from all submission.) We can’t wait to see where you take Loopy this summer and we hope you have fun with him!”

We will include a Loopy postcard with orders starting this week, in case you’d like to participate in the summer fun! You can pose with the postcard, or set him up somewhere by himself. Let your kids in on the picture, or prop him up by your dog. (He loves dogs and cats. He has to.) I’m hoping that Loopy gets to all 50 states and all of the countries that we have shipped to. He ought to be well-traveled by summer’s end. (I only wish I could come with him as part of the deal.) As you can see from the gallery, so far he has been to the TNNA Market in Columbus and already found some pretty fun people to pose with! Where will he be found next?

Sheri I’mtakingLoopytoColoradoinafewweeksIhopehelikesthemountains!

Well, well, well. It seems that Zoe had a bit of fun while I was gone, didn’t she? (And can’t you just tell what a character she is?) She had a great time reading all of the lovely comments that you and your pets left on her blog (and she quickly pointed out to me that apparently people ARE interested in a blog all about her, despite what I had told her in the past.) I’m sure she’ll get a bit of an attitude about it.

So - TNNA was fun! My good friend Janice went with me, to serve as someone to bounce ideas and advice off of. It really does help when you’re walking around that big exhibit hall, to have someone to discuss things with and give opinions. We’ve been friends for over 25 years, so she knows me well and was a big help. (And of course it was just fun having the weekend with her.) Here she is, posing with Loopy and one of the TNNA signs. That first morning, Janice took a Moebious Basket class with Cat Bordhi and I took an intarsia class with Lucy Neatby. Here’s a photo of Lucy demonstrating something in our class. I wish I had taken a close up of her intarsia vest, as it was unbelievable. It was a good class and Lucy is fun to listen to. I also met Clara Parkes in the class. Clara is the founder and head of Knitter’s Review and is just as nice as can be. She graciously posed with Loopy, too. (More on that Loopy in Wednesday’s post.) After the morning classes, we met the Cider Moon gals for lunch. (Oops - Cider Moon gals plus Jackie’s husband Travis, Cider Moon Webmaster.) You know how much I love their yarn, and it was a lot of fun to spend time with them in Ohio. I’m a bit disappointed that I somehow missed the Twilight Zone bathroom at TNNA, though. You’ll have to read the story on the Cider Moon blog.

The rest of Saturday and all day Sunday was spent walking among all of the booths. (And OH how I wish I could share that with you in pictures! Unfortunately, cameras are not allowed in the exhibit hall.) I had a lot of fun connecting with all of the people behind the companies who do so much beautiful work on the yarn we have here. Most I had met last year already, but it’s very different meeting them when you’ve put in one order with them and don’t even have a shop yet, compared to having ordered from them and talked on the phone with them WAY too many times over the past year! One new person I met this year - Cookie A! You have bought lots of her patterns, so she loves us here at The Loopy Ewe. It was really fun to sit and talk with her, and see all of her amazing socks in person. That night, we attended a special Customer Appreciation Happy Hour with the gals from Dream in Color. (And you know? I could’ve taken pictures there and just didn’t think about it, for pete’s sake!) We will have that gorgeous Smooshy sock yarn in in about 2 weeks. (Want to know what they said when they met us? “Ohhhh - you’re the one that ordered ALL that sock yarn, right?”)

I learned about new sock yarns coming out that I’m really excited about, and of course we’ll be right on top of ordering those. One new yarn line that we have added is Fiesta, for their Boomerang Sock Yarn. I am so in love with all of the Fiesta colorways. They keep all of the yarns in stock, so we will have them in just a week or two. I’ll keep you posted. (And watch for Baby Boomerang to come in the late summer.) I ordered some new accessories from a couple of different companies (and still thinking about a couple more.) I also have more yarn lines that I am testing and considering from the weekend. You’ll be seeing and hearing about the new stuff as we get it in over the next couple of months. All in all, a very productive three days. (And College Guy and Knitting Daughter seem to have done very well in packing up all of your orders and getting them out over the weekend, so a big YAY for them!) I did think this side-of-the-building advertisement in Columbus ought to win a “most creative” prize. See how the paint flows down across the cars below and into the parking lot? (Click on the photo to make it bigger.)

Of course I came home to boxes and boxes and boxes of yarn to be unpacked. (Leading one to question why I just ordered more. But I know all of you - no matter how huge the orders are that we get in, they leave the shop almost as fast as they come in. That’s why there is always more on order.) What arrived while I was gone for the weekend? All Things Heather (new lace yarns - yippee!), Lorna’s Laces (remember the dishwasher sized case the last time? This one was two of that size, plus another - I put most of them up this afternoon.  We have 15 more colorways that need photographing and will be up later.), Seacoast Merino, Yarn Pirate (including 2 new exclusive colorways that are probably my two favorites ever from Georgia), Misty Mountain Farm, and a brand new sock yarn from Cherry Tree Hill. Cheryl, of Cherry Tree Hill, emailed me last week to see if I wanted to offer the first 100-skein run of their brand new sock yarn, Sockittome - and of course I said yes! (This is an 80% superwash merino/20% nylon sock weight, 480 yds, 100 g skein.) And not only are you all going to be the first ones to be able to order it (because they won’t come out with this yarn until the end of June or early July), you’re also going to get it at a special price. Why? Because they are looking for patterns out of this yarn, and Cheryl is hoping that some of you might be interested in whipping up a pattern or two for them. (But of course you can buy it at the special price, even if you have no interest in doing a pattern.) They had this yarn at TNNA to show, and our order arrived today. I’m not sure if it will be in this week’s Sneak Up or next week’s. (Yarn Pirate will probably have to wait until next week. I know that you all will email me and ask!) But Zoe said to tell you that she likes this new Yarn Pirate colorway so much that she’s not sure I ought to put it up for sale.

And the winner of the May Blog Contest? Cheryl! (And guess what? We’ve decided from now on instead of picking out something to ship to you, we’re going to add a $35 credit to the monthly winner’s Loopy account. That way, you can immediately pick the Loopy Loot you’d like, or save it for the next Sneak Up - how’s that?)

Sheri sorrythispostendedupbeing”goodgrief”longtoday

Hi. It’s Zoe. The Loopy Lady is gone for the weekend and I’m taking over the blog for a few minutes. I was tagged for a meme by my friend Sumo, and the LL didn’t think she needed to let me answer it. She didn’t think a blog written all about me would be interesting. Go figure. So she’s gone and now’s my chance. Sumo DOES think a whole blog entry about me would be fascinating, so here are my seven things:

1. I was a stray the first six months of my life. I liked the running around part of all that, but sleeping and eating on the run is not all that it’s cracked up to be. One day, the animal control people caught me and then My People found me and adopted me. They picked me because I have big eyes and I purred a lot when they picked me up.

2. My vet (I have a great vet) calls me a “little girl”. I’m over a year old now and still weigh just under 6 lbs. But it’s all muscle, let me tell you.

3. I have two favorite sleeping places. One is in a suitcase that I found in the back room of our basement. (Oh, the back room - what a wonderful place to explore. The People say they need to clean it out, but it’s a really interesting place.) I like my suitcase a lot. LL even bought a special fleece pad for me to sleep on and she put it in the suitcase. My other favorite sleeping place is on a chair on the back screen porch, but I only like this when it’s not too hot or too cold outside. (It’s right by the bird feeders, too. Enough said.)

4. I don’t really like to be held. I put up with it when necessary (because The People seem to like it) but I’d rather be standing on their shoulders than cooped up in their arms. I do love being petted and such. I just would rather accept it on my own terms.

5. I like sleeping with The People at night, but I hide under the bed until they turn off the lights. Otherwise they might pick me up and try to hold me or something, and now you know how I feel about that. (see #4)

6. I really like to play. My favorite thing is to chase a laser light on the floor and I can be entertained for hours. However, LL tells everyone to stop and give me a rest after a few minutes because I tend to get a bit carried away with it all. (Moving lights - don’t you think they’re fascinating?? Or is it just me?)

7. I think dogs are ok. Casey - she lives here with me - was very happy when I came to live here last year. Once in awhile she lays in the doorway and blocks my entry to a room, but I just give her a swipe on the nose about it. (She still doesn’t move, but it makes me feel better to bat her nose about it.) Other than that, we get along just fine. We both like squirrels a lot.

Before I go, do you want to know any of the latest “scoop” from The Loopy Room? Because LL isn’t here and I can totally tell you anything I want. I heard an answering machine message yesterday from Lorna’s Laces - they said they were shipping out our “HUGE order”. Is that a good thing? And a big box of J.Knits new lace yarn arrived yesterday and LL was kinda ga-ga over it all. (Whatever.) Of course all of those boxes from Zen String are cluttering up my “race track” and I’m not very happy about it. But I have learned that all of the big boxes that come in, are emptied and shipped out to all of you really quickly, so they don’t hamper my activities too much. (You all buy a lot of yarn. Do you know that? I know it makes The People really happy. They probably love you almost as much as they love me. But not quite.)

I guess that’s all for today. LL will be back Monday. I’m sure she’ll be happy to see that I took over the blog for a day. Or not. As far as tagging anyone, well, if any of my friends want to leave comments about their seven things (Nikko? Lucy? Lucky? Tigger? Frogger? Jake? P-Man? anyone?) then I’d enjoy reading them. Or even one thing about yourself, if Your People will let you type a comment. In the meantime, I need a nap. Blog writing is exhausting.

Zoe se8wb43568fblndklghwawsgdmvotl (sorry - my paws got tangled in the keyboard.

But I’ll bet that’s how LL types those goofy signatures she does anyways.)