Hi there! First of all, a big big thank you to all of you who are so wonderful and kind and encouraging, even when you miss Wollmeise again! So many of you wrote order notes that just brightened our day! (Ok – brightened our night. We were working on orders late into the night!) We really appreciate your business and your kindness. Please know that we’re getting these out as fast as possible, but it does take an extra day or two during Sneak Ups.

I did feel the need to address something in the blog. While 98% of you have been wonderful, 2% of you are not happy. I know it’s disappointing to be watching the website for something, and then miss it. If I had my way, we’d just announce the time and day we were adding new products, and you wouldn’t have to pay such close attention to things here! But remember, we don’t do that because so many hop on and shop at once, that it has killed the website. We have tested the web capacity by having daytime Sneak Ups these last couple of times, and for the most part it works ok. (A couple of glitches yesterday when people checked out simultaneously with the last skeins of something, but we’re figuring out ways around it for the future.) But it doesn’t work ok enough to pre-announce again. This is just the way we have to work it. It’s not a “marketing ploy” or something meant to create stress – it’s the most efficient and effective way for us to update the website on a regular basis, for you.

We also order a lot. I have tried to generically reassure you of that in past blog posts, but I still had someone wonder this morning why I don’t order more yarn: “Why don’t you just order enough so you can stock it? Or is making an artificially high demand more profitable for you?” Now that just makes me a bit cranky. (Or maybe it makes me a lot cranky.) We have not, nor will we ever, artificially do anything here for profitability. I don’t believe in it, and it doesn’t work, anyway, even if your values allowed you to do something like that. We order the maximum amount that our indie dyers can produce, and we get orders from them as often as they can dye them up for us. Period. Remember, these are wonderfully talented individuals doing all of this on their own. There is only so much that they can produce. We had 330 skeins of Wollmeise yesterday, gone in 2 hours. (I can see when the last skein was sold.) We had 340 patterns from Wendy. She is sending me 450 more on Friday, just because she has printed her heart out all week long and was able to get a bit more done! (She doesn’t want to do it by pdf. You can check her blog last week for her reasoning, which I happen to agree with.) We also get 350-500 skeins of Dream In Color per order, every single month, and I know those sell out usually in a day. We have regular standing orders with all of our dyers and most all of our “main” yarn companies, just to insure that we keep getting great yarn in here for you, all the time. By having a good number of indie dyers, it insures that new batches from at least a few of them will be in every week or two, even if the one you were waiting on, sold out quickly. We will continue to do our very very best to serve you well and keep you supplied. This business is extremely important to us, and we take it very seriously. Now that I have attached numbers to some of these things, maybe it will help more of you to understand that it’s not a matter of not ordering enough. We order the maximums. The demand is high for many of these yarns/patterns, and we will continue to get stock in to fill it – as often as possible, and as much as possible.

There. Cranky rant is over. Back to packing up your orders and sending them on their way with hugs and many thanks to each one of you. 98% of you are just the best!

Sheri it’sabeautifullycoolandsunshineydaytoday
wishyouwerehereandwecouldsitandknitonmybackscreenporch!
(actually,wishyouwereheretohelppackorders-ha!)

Time for another “It bugs me” post. Why? Because things bug me today.

1. The post office. Still (STILL) waiting on our order of boxes. No boxes, no Sneak Up. Keeping my fingers crossed for today. Zoe is keeping a watch out the window for Terry, the postman.

2. Chicken Lo Mein from P.F. Changs. Actually, the dish doesn’t bug me – it’s very good, but the lunch-sized version has 1650 calories and I didn’t find that out until after I had had lunch there with a friend last week. FPS. (For Pete’s Sake.) I did not need to know that.

3. The post office. Still (STILL) waiting on one more case of Wollmeise. No case, no Wollmeise going up this week. Keeping my fingers crossed for today.

4. Knitting time yesterday. I got so little done. (It might’ve had something to do with the fact that I fell asleep on the couch for a “20 minute nap” and woke up 2 hours later.)

5. The post office. Still (STILL) going to the branch offices all over St. Louis (thank goodness we have so many) begging boxes to tide us over. I may end up visiting them all.

6. Frogging. After spending the time I did have on knitting yesterday, I decided that I didn’t like the pattern and frogged it back down to the toe. Bummer.

On a brighter note:

1. If we get boxes, we do have fun yarns going up this week: Fiesta Baby Boomerang, Yarn Nerd, Zen String Bambewe, Perchance to Knit, and Cider Moon Glacier. Plus more patterns from Wendy and Cookie A. (And did you see that we completely re-stocked the ShibuiKnits over the weekend? Also, patterns from Knitting Pure & Simple, Heartstrings, Heartland Knits, Wildhorse Farm Designs and MimKnits were re-stocked.)

2. If we do get the last case of Wollmeise, that will go up as well. If not, we’ll add it in next week. Remember – we will keep getting Wollmeise, so we’ll keep having it available. Don’t stress over it. Did I mention that we’d have Wollmeise lace coming in this fall, too? (Added: Postman Terry just came. Wollmeise arrived. Shipping boxes did not. No Sneak Up tonight. FPS.)

3. I did get a good nap yesterday!

4. I really like the pattern that I chose to start over with on the sock-in-progress. I pulled the basic idea out of a stitch dictionary & tweaked it. When I get the socks done, I’ll put the pattern up on the Free Patterns section.

5. We have some more free patterns going up on the website within the next few days - Baby Monkey socks (Cookie said “Of course!”), a beautiful pattern with Wollmeise from Loopy friend and pattern designer Monica Jines, and a very cool pattern called Firestarter from Yarnissima.

6. We have been working on our indie-dyer interviews all summer long and have started putting those up on the website. If you do the Search by Vendor, you will find interviews and photos for: Chewy Spaghetti, Cider Moon, Holly Spring Homespun, Seacoast, Sknitches, Yarn Love, Yarn Pirate, Yarntini. (Just click the link that says “Find out more about…” when their page comes up.) We have the others in the works and will keep adding them.

7. I finally got some of my knitted projects photo-ed for my Ravelry page. (Unfortunately, it also points out how many single socks I have.)

8. We have some exciting plans for The Loopy Ewe this fall – I’ll keep you posted as things progress!

9. There are a whole lotta “10 Yarn Collectors” out there who share my hobby interest obsession outlook on yarn. I like that.

10. College Guy and a friend or two are coming home this coming weekend for a visit - the brightest news of all, for this mom!

Sheri any”bugs”or”brights”youwanttoshare?

1. “You know, I think it would be fun to learn how to knit a scarf to wear this winter. How hard can it be?”

2. “Isn’t my scarf great? I want to knit another.”

3. “Purling? Oh, no. I just do the regular knit stitch. I don’t want to try purling or anything complicated.”

4. Sigh. “I have 25 scarves and now I’m bored. How many scarves does one person need?”

4a. “I need to find another hobby.” Some people – the people-who-tried-knitting-briefly – choose to exit here.

or

4b. “Maybe I ought to learn to purl.” (The True Knitters continue on.)

5. “Socks? On those little toothpick needles? Are you kidding me? Absolutely not.”

6. “Socks! I love knitting socks. And aren’t they wonderful to wear? I need a bunch.”

7. “Stash? Oh, I just buy one project ahead, so that I know I’m going to use it. I don’t believe in the stash concept.”

8. “Stash! Everyone has stash. You never know what you’ll want to knit next. Of course I have a container full of stash.”

9. “I have more yarn than I can ever knit in a lifetime. Maybe I better stop finding more.”

10. “Yes, I have a lot of yarn and it’s always fun finding more. I’m a Yarn Collector and Knitter!”

Sheri I’mtotallya#10howaboutyou?

I found more glass jars for yarn balls yesterday. Do you have a HomeGoods store near you? That’s where these came from. I found this one first and love how it sits on a pedestal and has a pretty top. (In my mind, I’m wondering how long that pretty top is going to last. I’ll have to put it somewhere safe, where it won’t get hit by a flying ball or anything.) My other yarn ball jar was much smaller and full, so I haven’t been too motivated to make more balls. However, this one has LOTS of space to fill up and I just love it. I emptied the other jar into it and will turn that first jar into …. something else. The second jar is so big, that it’s perfect for yarn cakes! (How will I keep track of which cake is what yarn? I took photos of them before dumping them in here.) I don’t wind too many of my yarns up ahead of time, but I do have enough wound up to fill up this jar. When you cake your yarn, it can stretch it a bit, so that’s why you don’t want to cake too far ahead of your knitting. But isn’t the jar cool? WH’s first question when he saw it: “Nice. Where are you going to put it?” Did anyone else start Yarn Ball Jar collections since the last post? I also saw some great wooden bowls at HomeGood, too.

Another new thing – check out the shoes that Dr. Jackie told me I “had” to buy. She was right. I clicked over on the link she sent and knew I had to have Sheep Birks. I mean, they’re RED for pete’s sake. How could I turn them down? (Can I write that off to advertising??) They did have other cute animals in different colors, but the sheep were definitely meant for me.

Speaking of sheep, look what my friend Sharon sent me for our Loopy anniversary – a sheep weathervane! I posted it in the “garden corner” by our back porch. Now, granted, the garden corner is severely lacking this year. But just because the weathervane is so pretty, I’m going to make sure there are plenty of beautiful things growing around it next year. (That’s why you’re not getting a photo standing back from it, with beautiful flowers growing all around the base. Next year. Surely.)

I did get some knitting done over the weekend. I finished my Sockina Cotton socks (both of them – yay!) and finished my first Monkey out of Dream in Color Some Summer Sky. I was all set to cast on the second Monkey but got distracted by a case of yarn that was delivered today. Case #1 (of 3) of this next Wollmeise order. I haven’t cast on yet, but I have the skeins here next to my computer, just for admiring. Then I got to thinking, wouldn’t a whole big jar full of Wollmeise be a gorgeous decoration? But of course you’d never be able to leave it alone. You’d want to knit it all up. (And yes, I’d definitely take all of the tags off it I were going to have these on display.) That also got me to thinking – wouldn’t it be pretty to have a glass jar or wooden bowl out on display filled with yarns that go with the season? Reds/oranges/yellows/burgundys/browns for fall, blues/purples/whites for the winter, pastels or bright pinks/limes/greens/yellows for the spring, aquas/sun yellows/oranges for the summer? I just may have to try that when I “Fall up” the house in the next week or two. Fall is my very favorite season!

I know you’re wondering about the next Sneak Up. It’s looking like it will have to be next week. We really don’t have enough shipping boxes for a Sneak Up. We have visited 4 post office branches to beg and borrow as many cases of boxes as they could spare, to take care of regular orders this week. (We order them online from usps.com and they take 7-10 business days to get here, so that’s the holdup. Usually we manage to successfully stay ahead of the game on that but last week did us in. I’m sorry that means you’ll have to wait!) Hopefully the latest order of boxes will arrive by the weekend, and we’ll Sneak Up next week. It’s very weird to be out of boxes. But on a brighter note, there is beautiful yarn going up next week! I’ll give you a “for sure” list next Monday, but as long as the other 2 cases of Wollmeise arrive this week, you can count on that for next week. In the meantime, we’ll probably do a few re-stocks this week yet. More Fiesta Boomerang has arrived, along with more Dream in Color, and another whole batch of Wendy’s patterns. There’s always something fun arriving here.

Sheri didanyonemaketheSpecialKBars?And
didanyonegetsomegoodknittingtimeinovertheweekend?