Dragonflies. I don’t get them. They are buzzy and crackly and flitty and if one ever flies in my face I will scream. This guy was outside on one of our shrubs and he was huge. I know that people have dragonfly jewelry, and sew with dragonfly fabrics, and have dragonfly logos. What is the draw? Fill me in.

Other things that bug me today:

1. Bill paying. I hate bill paying day and I waste so much time doing everything BUT the bills on days like today. There really is no reason not to like it. I just get tired of all of the stuff – envelopes, stamps, stubs, return address labels, checks, etc. (Yes, I do pay some online, too.)

2. Heat. We are under a heat advisory for the entire cotton-pickin’ week. That means the heat index is supposed to go over 100 degrees every day this week. Great.

3. Yarn in boxes. Funny to have yarn on this list, but it does bug me when gorgeous stuff comes in and it has to sit in a box for a week or two, waiting its turn to be photo-ed and put up. Today? Big boxes of Fleece Artist Cashmere, Sea Silk, and Mini Maiden arrived. It’s gorgeous. And more of that wonderful BFL yarn from Gypsy Knits! But it all has to wait its turn to go up. Hopefully next week.

4. Calories. I was so dismayed to find out that my Grande Peppermint Mocha has 300 calories. 300 calories, for pete’s sake!! It has severely cut into my PM intake. (And I think that makes me cranky. But I digress.)

5. Computers. I had written this whole blog entry and clicked to add the dragonfly photo. Instead, the entire entry disappeared. I had to write it over. I was not happy.

But on the brighter side:

1. The bills are done and paid for the month.

2. The air-conditioning is working full blast and keeping things very comfortable in the house.

3. At least I get to play with all the new yarn for a bit. It flies out of here once it goes up on the website.

4. I may need a PM today anyway. The heck with the calories.

5. The blog entry is done again. This time I will save it before adding the photo. (Not that it was my fault before….)

So – anything buggin’ you today? Or can you clue me in about what there is to like about dragonflies?

Sheri mymum-in-lawworkedonassemblingsockclubgoodiestodayforournextshipmentyeehaa!

Wow – you all must be the most giving group of knitters around. I can’t believe how many hats and mitts you all knit up for the babies in China and for Luba’s girls in Russia. The packages have come in so overwhelmingly, that it has been hard to keep track of it all. (Not hard to keep track of what you sent – we have big bins of those items! Just hard to keep track of all of YOU!) Thank you so much for your generosity. I know that for most of us, knitting time is a luxury. Giving some of that up to knit for others is just wonderful. We have 52 pairs of mitts and 37 hats to send off to Luba’s girls in Russia (plus a couple of gorgeous scarves). We have 102 baby hats and 50 toddler hats to send to the orphanage in China (plus a few pairs of cuter-than-can-be wee socks). Some of you included notes to say that your moms, friends and daughters helped with the knitting. (And Trish sent camo-foil wrapped Hershey’s kisses that she buys on the military base. Who knew there were camo-wrapped kisses?? We loved them!) Please leave a shout-out in the comments if you knitted up an item for the Challenge. We’re shipping these off to the recipients next week. I just wish I could be there when everyone received their handknits. I know how much these will be appreciated. The Q2 Challenge participants who won Loopy Gift Certificates (because we pick two random people to win) are Christine S and Tracy D. Thank you again to everyone who sent something in! We’ll do this again next year, and I already have two more wonderful places that we can knit for.

So it’s time for a new Challenge, right? As promised, the Q3 Challenge is about knitting something for yourself (or a loved one). The Challenge this time is to pick a sock or lace pattern that is a stretch for you in terms of new techniques (or just more complicated stitch patterns than you typically knit.) I typically end up knitting fairly simple patterns because I’m usually knitting while I’m doing something else and can’t concentrate too awfully hard on it. But there are some gorgeous patterns out there (and I’m thinking ALL of the Cookie A patterns, for example, and so many of the lace patterns I have seen) that take a bit more thought but will bring such beautiful results. For some of you who regularly do k2, p2 ribbing all the way up, ANY pattern will be a bit more of a challenge. Others of you have knit all of Cookie’s patterns and found them plenty easy, so maybe it’s time for an entrelac sock? You know your level of knitting and what will be a stretch for you. So – pick a pattern to challenge yourself and then knit it up and enter it into the Q3 photo gallery! We will pick a random winner for one of the Loopy Gift Certificates, and we’ll do a Reader’s Choice award with another Loopy Gift Certificate. All entries must be up in the gallery by October 1st and we’ll do voting that week. Can you add more than one entry into the Challenge? Sure! Challenge yourself over and over!

I know you want to know what is going up in next week’s long-awaited Sneak Up, right? Well there are some for-sures, and some maybes. WH is still plowing through all of the photos and plans an all-day-Saturday marathon, so we’ll see what all he can get done. For sure, the Wollmeise will be up. Also Spritely Goods, new Fiesta Boomerang colors, Misty Mountain Farms, Schaefer Anne and Lola, and Chewy Spaghetti in the fingering weight. Plus Maruca bags in the new fall colors, new limited edition Mrs. Kwitty bags, and some fun accessories that I ordered in June at the market. What else might be up: Cider Moon Flurry, Yarn Love, Yarntini, Fleece Artist, and Cherry Tree Hill Sockittome. (And now you know why I usually do weekly Sneak Ups. Too much arrives here from week to week!)

Today’s recipe is a scone recipe that we have had and used in our family for a long time. These are wonderful for breakfast (and there is oatmeal in there – so it’s definitely good for you, right?) I included some of our scone making photos from being out in Colorado. We had expert scone lessons from Iowa Girl, who makes the most delicious scones for a wonderful little coffee shop/gift place called Barn Happy. (Her scone secrets? Cutting in the butter while it’s cold when you have a recipe that calls for unmelted butter- it’s all in the scissor action, mixing the dry and wet ingredients separately, and then pouring them together and mixing – as little as possible – by hand. There you have it. The secrets of great scone-making.)

Scottish Oat Scones

1 1/3 c. melted butter
2/3 c. milk
2 eggs
3 c. flour
2 1/2 c. oats
1/2 c. sugar
2 Tbs. baking powder
2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp. salt
1 c. raisins

Add liquid ingredients in one bowl and dry ingredients in another bowl. Pour both together and mix by hand until just moistened. Stir in raisins. Shape dough to form a ball. Pat out on floured surface to form 2 8″ circles. Put on greased cookie sheet and score (cut halfway through) into 8-12 wedges. Add a few raisins to the top and sprinkle a bit of sugar over all. Bake at 450 degrees for 12-15 minutes. Serve with warm butter, preserves, or honey.

Are you on Ravelry yet? Loopy Groupie Heather set up a Loopy Group over there and it’s so fun to see all of your smiling faces and avatars in there. Come join the group if you’re a Ravelery person! And if you’re not in Ravelry yet – then put your name on the wait list, so that as they make their way through the invitation list, you will be on it. THEN come join the Loopy Groupies there. You don’t have to be an official LG to join – just a Loopy Groupie wannabe and Loopy friend. (And if you’ve ordered from us before – you’re a Loopy friend!)

Sheri mywonderfulmotherinlawiscomingtovisitthisweekend-yippee!!
Hopeyouhaveagreatone.

I think it’s clear that I just need to find more knitting time in my week. I had so much fun getting lots of socks done on vacation (and of course shopping, eating, watching movies, hanging out, etc. Hmmm – maybe I just need to be on vacation all the time?) As promised, here are photos of the completed pairs. These first four are ones that had a sock done and needed the mate. (Except these Duets. With this one, I had just 1/2 of 1 sock done and frogged it back to change the pattern anyway. So that counts for 1 1/2 socks knitted up for that pair, right?) So the Duets – I decided to add the solid color on the top as well as on the heel and toe. What do you think? I kept the instep just plain knitting so that I could see the rows of color. The pattern on the top is basically P2, K5 for 3 rows, and then stick a row of P2, k2tog, yo, k, yo, ssk in there. Very quick and easy. It really is fun to knit with contrasting toes and heels. We have an order of Skinny Duets (her fingering weight) coming in the near future.

The All Things Heather you might remember as my official Frank socks. I think it’s not good that I only finished one for the first challenge, for pete’s sake! But now they’re done and they’re eye-poppin’ bright, aren’t they? This yarn is so soft and comfortable to wear. (Because yes I did need to wear socks out in Colorado in the evenings. I’ll tell you, what is there not to like about that state? Sock wearing, year-round.) The pattern is Penllyn from Wildhorse Farm and I liked it a lot. I may not knit another pair of orange/pink socks (does one need more than one pair like this?) but I’m glad to have them. And really glad to have them done. (Heather is sending more sock yarn to us very soon.) Are you liking the Frank and/or Martha socks that you knit for the Q1 Challenge? And did it encourage you to knit more of the “other” types of colors in the future? I find myself being a bit more bold in my color selections. (Q3 info in Friday’s blog. Time for a new Challenge!)

This pair of socks is out of Crystal Palace’s Panda Cotton in the Jeans colorway. It’s a wonderful yarn – no wool. Just 55% Bamboo, 24% cotton, 21% elastic nylon. It’s so soft on your feet and this one, of all my twinless socks, is one that I really wanted to finish up soon because I knew I’d wear them a lot. That’s how much I like wearing this yarn on my feet. Now I get to pick another Panda Cotton colorway to work on. This yarn IS a bit splitty, but I found that that went away as I got more into the ball. The pattern is another Wildhorse Farm pattern – Savannah Socks. I have made this pattern before and it’s one of my standard favorites. I keep thinking I might do a pair of Panda Cotton socks and pick coordinating yarn for the toes and heels. (Like Strawberry Lime for the socks, and Lime for the heels and toes. Or Fruit Salad with Lacquer Red. Or Mardi Gras with Royal Purple. Or …. well … you get the idea.)

Next, the socks I knit up out of Fiesta Boomerang. Wow – this was great to knit up. It’s a heavier weight. I knit this on 2′s with 48 stitches and each sock literally took just a few hours. (So, really, it’s almost not fair to count them because they went up so fast. But I’m counting them anyway, because a pair of socks is a pair of socks, after all.) The thing that I love about Fiesta – besides how fast it knits up – is their colorways. They have some of the prettiest color combinations around. We have the other half of our first Fiesta order going up in the Sneak Up next week, and you will see more of what I mean. I also really like the “squishiness” of the yarn. It makes it a very comfortable sock to wear. The pattern is one that Loopy friend Josiane from Switzerland sent me and she said I could share it. You can also see how she used it just on the top of the cuff on her Sknitches Breathmint sock in our photo gallery. As soon as I saw that photo go up, I emailed her to ask what the pattern was. It’s: 3 rows of K3, P3, and then one row of: yo, sl1-k2tog-psso, yo, p3. That’s it. Easy but so pretty, don’t you think?

Last, the yarn that cured me of my twinless sock habit. I knit one sock and then immediately cast on and knit the match. I’m so excited to have this Wollmeise in-house and I can’t wait to get it up next week for you to get your hands on. The colors are so deeply saturated and wonderful. (I was so amazed that this didn’t bleed when I washed it. Because of the intensity, I was sure there might be bleeding.) I used another one of my favorite sock patterns – Parting Ways by Heartstrings. There are over 500 yds. in each skein, so you could make kneesocks for someone with very very long feet! I had a lot of yarn left over and I wear a size 11. Or – how fun would it be to make matching socks for a little one? For sure I’m going to make a sock blocker keychain with it. We’ll be getting more Wollmeise in August again because I know it will sell out quickly, despite the large order that I have sitting here. So don’t panic if you miss it the first time – we’ll keep getting it as often as we can!

Now I just wish it was winter and I could be wearing all of these. Somehow, 90+ degree weather and sock-wearing don’t mesh. sigh. Still wondering why we live in St. Louis.

Sheri anyonehaveanytipsonfindingmoreknittingtimeinyourweek?

It was 48 degrees at 6 am on Saturday morning when we left Colorado (although it was going to be in the 70′s that day). It’s going to be in the upper 90′s here in St. Louis today. What is wrong with this picture? Yes indeed, we need to move to Colorado. (We had serious discussions about this. Probably when the kids are out of college. Yay!) I’ve been vacationing in the mountains for 30+ years and I must be a mountain girl at heart. I just love it out there. But I missed all of you! The online capabilities where we were were spotty at best, so I was disconnected. I know – it was probably a good thing. You all kept Susan and the girls extremely busy here while I was gone. They did a great job in filling all of those orders! (I’m thinking that Susan probably needs a vacation now.)

So what did I do while I was gone? I had 3 days in MN, and then flew out to Colorado (Keystone) to vacation with family and friends for a week and a half. I did much knitting. I have 5 new pairs (PAIRS) of socks! Four of them are previous “single socks” that now have partners – whoot! And one pair I knit all at once because I was so in love with the yarn. (Anyone want to hazard a guess as to which yarn I was knitting up?) Pictures of socks on Wednesday’s blog. I need to wash and block them all. It was so fun to get so much knitting done.

We had fun doing other things as well. We went horseback riding in the mountains. Here, Knitting Daughter, Iowa Girl, and College Guy await their assigned horses. It was a 90 minute ride up and down the mountain and that seemed to be just about right. I was near the end of the line, so this was my view most of the time. (I was sore after horseback riding, for pete’s sake. How can that be? I don’t ever remember being sore after riding horses as a kid. Jeesh.) I’m thinking if I was sore, it must be good exercise, right? Maybe when we move to Colorado, we’ll have to buy horses. For exercise, you know. Here’s something I learned – if the horse is going to the bathroom, you need to stand up in the stirrups. It takes the pressure off of their kidneys. That’s probably information that you did not need to know. Me, either.

There was shopping, of course. I had to take Loopy to two of my favorite stores in Breckenridge. The first – Joy of Sox – is almost as fun as knitting your own. Almost. I didn’t buy regular socks there, but I did find some fun footies that have aloe in them and felt like silk. Great to wear to bed. My other favorite place is Milagros. They have wonderful loaves of all kinds of soaps and I think I went back there on three different occasions this time. My favorite scents there are Glacier and Rain, but my favorite loaf for the design has to be the coffee one. Do you see Loopy perched there in the middle of a few loaves? He liked it there. This is just the entrance to the store. There are tables and tables of these wonderful soap loaves! You can see all of the soaps and order them online here. They make great gifts. I also caught this sign on one of the shops in Breck. I can’t remember which store it was, but it cracked me up. (There are several great pizza places there. No doubt there are a lot of pizza leftovers being carried about.)

We took the ski lift to the top of the mountain one day. It’s so beautiful up there. Here is a photo of College Guy and Iowa Girl on the rocks. What a view behind them! These rocks are stuck into the side of the mountain and perfect for climbing. My friend Janice and I did a bit of knitting at the top of the mountain, because there were chairs there that were clearly meant for knitters. We knew as soon as we saw them that they were marked for us. While we were knitting, the kids were sliding down snow hills, so we soon had to abandon the knitting and get the cameras out.

All of the flowers in Colorado look wonderful. I might even be into gardening if I could do it in cool weather and have such wonderful results. Here, my flowers just seem to …. die. Maybe I ought to water them more often. Yet another reason to move to Colorado asap. We’re going to have to investigate locations more completely.

Ok – now I’m off to get all of your weekend orders out and then answer the eleventy-billion emails that are sitting in my in-box. It’s a good thing Susan and Knitting Daughter are helping again today. Knitting photos on Wednesday, next week’s Sneak Up info on Friday. (Remember – no Sneak Up this week – WH has a LOT of photos to take. Boxes and boxes of stuff came in while we were gone. I’m hoping by Friday we will have a better idea of what will be up next week. For sure, the Wollmeise, because THAT is the yarn that kept me so captivated that I made the second sock immediately after the first. The colors and yarn are amazing.)

Sheri sowhatalldidyoudowhileIwasgonefortwoweeks??