Random #1: With the whole Loopy move, I also got a new computer. I had to wait until last weekend because Mac came out with a new system, but now I have it. There are good and bad things about this.

Good: bigger screen
Bad: things had to be transferred over and new systems/files/folders had to be set up.
Good: Web Guy was here to take care of it.
Bad: I have a sneaking suspicion that I lost some emails in the process.
Weird: Look at this new wireless keyboard that goes with it.
Even Weirder: I like it and it’s easy to type on.

Random #2: I have this shelf in my office and I love having all of my cute WoolPets in once place. (Of course I had to have a Loopy, and also a Louise (Loopy’s big sister) and a Bart (Loopy’s no-good brother, the black sheep of the family.) Also, Loopy in his Halloween costume. I’m a bit addicted to Laurie’s adorable WoolPets. (We did get more of the Loopy kits in stock, if you haven’t made one yet.) Also, you need to keep an eye on her etsy shop, as there are several other cute critters that she has available. As for the yarn on my shelf – this is the “fall” display. My current three favorite Fall colorways: J.Knits Reno, Sheepaints Autumn Forest, and Numma Numma Baba Ganoush. I love them all. (I also like having a spot to display a few skeins at a time.)

Random #3: Gracie is hyper. Truly, she is such a crazy cat. She looks as sweet as can be, and she will lay in your arms and purr louder than a truck as long as you want to hold her, but the minute you put her down, she’s going 90 miles an hour and swatting everything in her path. I have never seen a cat who liked to PLAY so much. This toy - which I went back and forth about, because really, does one need to spend money on yet another cat toy? – is worth its weight in gold. She will play with this thing forever. We have to put it up at night because she drives us nuts with it. I may have finally taught her that she doesn’t need to attack Zoe every time Zoe walks by. (“Oooh – big cat play toy!”) I did not teach her to avoid the dog, but she took care of that all by herself. One loud hiss and a major swipe with claws extended, and I think Casey will carefully avoid that one the rest of her life.

Random #4: I’m going on a knitting weekend. (I know -doesn’t it seem like I just did that?? Don’t bring that up to WH, please.) I’m going to spend the night Thursday night with this cute cat (and I’m sure she is a bit more laid back than Gracie the Kamikaze) and then we’re driving up to a retreat place in VA for a weekend of knitting with a few friends. I think I’m going to learn to spin. That’s a very bad thing. I know I will like it. I have no time for spinning in my life at the moment. But I’m going to learn anyway. I think I’m nuts.

Random #5: Next week we’ll have more fun things for you. So far, new J.Knits, a fresh batch of Scarlet Fleece, more Chewy Spaghetti fingering, 8 big boxes of Dream in Color, brand new lace yarn from Zen String, and we’ll see what else arrives in the meantime. I can’t wait for you to see some of the cool things we have on order, which are arriving any time!

Random #6: Yes, it IS time for the next Sock Club installment! However, we’re waiting on the last item for the package to arrive. As soon as it gets here, we’ll get them packed and shipped. Watch for your Sock Club invoices in your email around the end of next week. (And because I know you’ll ask – our Sock Club is full, but we’ll have signups for 2008 in mid-January. I’ll pre-announce it on the blog and in our monthly customer email newsletter, so you’ll know when sign-ups are open again!)

Before I take off for the weekend, I wanted to announce the October Blog contest winner. Jen wins a $25 gift certificate to The Loopy Ewe! Thanks so much for all of your wonderful comments, which I have loved reading. We’ll have another fun contest in November!

(edited: ok – working on getting the photos back.  Check in tomorrow! Dumb computers……..)

Sheri whowillreportbackinonMondaywithknittingprogressandbearreportseeek!

Well, we’re still waiting on a few things for our Loopy Room here, but I thought I’d give you a few fun photos! Here’s our entry. This was already part of the office space and we weren’t really sure what to do with it. But the red cabinet was perfect there. We’re still working on the area. This is also where your packages sit and wait for the new mailman to pick them up. This route is “up for grabs” so every day there is a substitute postman working the route. They did, however, arrange for a special 2 pm special pickup for us every day “due to the volume of boxes”, so that shouldn’t deter anyone from bidding on this route, right? Did I tell you that the first day we had boxes to go out, the “carrier pickup” notice went to the wrong place, so our old postman Terry came to the new place to pick up all of your boxes just to be nice? This is a different town and zone than he is in, so that was really above and beyond the call of duty. He’s a nice guy and we’ll miss him. (He did enjoy seeing the new space, though!)

My favorite part is our sign when you walk in. We had a smaller sign in our old Loopy Room, and no Loopy. I love this one! WH made it for me. Lucky for me this is one of the things he does in his graphics business, or I wouldn’t have been able to afford it – ha! Loopy makes me smile every time I come in in the mornings. I’m kinda fond of him. We will eventually have an island of shorter shelves in front of this section, too.

Now to the right of this area, is the little kitchenette where our red microwave and our red coffee pot reside. You might remember me grumbling about finding this $99 coffee maker and not spending the money on it. However, my mom put her researching skills to work, found it for less, and ordered it as a “house office-warming gift”. So now we get our coffee from the red coffee maker. (Thanks to Knitting Daughter being a Starbucks Barista, we also have plenty of good coffee to go in the machine.) Have you noticed that there are a lot of red kitchen things out on the market nowadays? I love it! Of course our little area is small and we don’t need pots and pans and other gadgets (no stove or anything.) It has been fun to see all of the options out there, though.

To the left of the big Loopy sign area, is the long part of our L-shaped office space. Note the empty shelves at the beginning of the rows – room to grow! That will be short-lived, because we have enough new yarn lines coming in to fill all of them up, but for the moment, it looks like room to grown. I love having a space for all of the yarn to STAY in. I used to spend most Saturdays unboxing all of the new yarn from the week, re-arranging what we had in the Loopy Room, and finding spots for the new stuff. Check out the cool shelves that WH built for us to be able to peg some skeins. I find it hard to walk by that shelf and not pull a few skeins off to start knitting up. It’s very tempting.

Here’s Susan, hard at work, as usual. When you call in to us, Susan or I are the ones who answer the phone. We’re here the most. She was not a knitter when she started here, but she has completed her first scarf and I have high hopes that socks are in her future, sometime. She does find plenty of yarn and colorways that are hard to pass up! Susan is also mom to Carly, who is our Loopy Elf Jr. in the summers and on an occasional school break.

We also have a little corner with a couch (yes, of course it’s red!) so that both of my kids will come and hang out with me. So far, it’s working. Knitting Daughter pops by on her way home from school and also comes to do homework if we’re working here at night. College Guy was here while he was home this weekend. He got my email set up here (YAY!!) and did some other computer maintenance, and then he and my dad put a bunch more shelves together for us. Guess who else has visited here? Zoe! (Shhh – it’s a secret. Not every day. Just once in awhile. And I did get permission.) Gracie will have to come next.

So that’s the state of Loopification at the moment. I wish you could all come and see us in person. We could sit and knit on the Loopy Red Couch! Maybe one of these days.

And did you catch today’s Sneak Up? Sheepaints, Numma Numma, Perchance to Knit Cashmere, Cherry Tree Hill’s newest colorway Cherry Blossom, The Plucky Knitter Lace, Chewy Spaghetti Sport, Fleece Artist Seawool, Ham’s Jam Yarn Cruisers in 2 new colors, Knitspot patterns, New Monica Knits patterns, Seacoast Superwash Sock (new colors!), and Loopy/Louise/Bart stitchmarkers again. Lots of fun stuff!

Sheri yarncontinuestoarrivedailybecauseIhavetofillupthoseemptyshelves!

I can’t stop thinking about the wildfires in California. I have so many friends out there (at last count, all are safe so far). There was a sad photo on the front page of our newspaper yesterday. It showed an entire neighborhood burned to the ground, except for one house left standing in the middle of it all. (They didn’t mention how that one house was safe. My thought is – of course you want your house to be safe, but how sad to be there when all of your neighbors houses are gone.) I’m hoping that all of you Loopy Friends out there are safe and sound as well. You Californians (and those who have loved ones there) are certainly in our thoughts and prayers.

So today, I’m focusing on happy things, because there’s enough sadness on the news. So:

Happy Thing #1: Knitting Daughter and College Guy are both hanging out at Loopy Central today, and I love seeing them here.

Happy Thing #2: Fun things going up next week: Numma Numma, Chewy Spaghetti, Sheepaints, Seacoast Merino, Perchance to Knit Cashmere Sock, Plucky Knitter Lace, Mrs. Kwitty’s bags, and Ham’s Jams Yarn Cruisers.

Happy Thing #3: We have more Loopy Groupies to welcome to the fold! Congratulations to the following people: Jennifer in TN, Pat in OH, Troy in NJ, Jari in IN, Kathy in IA, Erin in WA, Elizabeth in NY, Katrina in IL, Debbie in MN, Jenna in Canada, Sarah in CA, Jo Anne in HI, Susan in IL, Cindy in KS, Sue in WA, Risa in NJ, Pamela in NY, Christine in NC, Anne in LA, Claire in CA, Erica in Germany, Terri in WA, Suna in TX, Kathy in MO, Kara in MO, Pia in MD, Vicky in GA, Rachel in the military, Sarah in AK, Terri in WA, Annette in AZ, Deborah in MN, Melissa in OH, Ruth in Canada, Megan in TX, Sheila in IL, Natalie in AZ, Katie in IA, Barbara in CT, Mary in TX, Lisa in AK, Elizabeth in WI, Kaylee in CO, Tracie in PA, Christine in MI, Angelina in TX, Lisa in IL, Phoebe in FL, Laura in CA, Ginni in MO, Megan in MA, Barbara in MO, Debra in MA, Jennifer in MD, Sherry in AK, Virginia in TN, Jocelyn in CA, Dee in CA, Allison in MO, Gail in OR, Elizabeth in GA, Sandy in CA, Teresa in TX, Sarah in ID, Nancy in MN, Barbara in GA, Chenoa in CO, Melissa in MA, Victoria in NY, Kristin in MO, Heather in WA, Jennifer in IL, Jennifer in TN, Heather in WA, Emily in TN, Stephanie in CA, Brenna in CA, Amanda in IN, Toni in CA, Karen in FL, Ena in MA, Jewel in CA, Jessica in WA, Ada in VA, Sarah in NE, Mary in MO, Merry Gay in MO, Jordi in NY, Elizabeth in NC, Sue in NE, Ruth in CO, Deawn in NE, Gayle in MA, Rochelle in NC, Amy in NV, Dawn in MO, Angela in the UK, Patricia in IL, Anne in KY, Vanessa in Australia, Greta in OK, Bonnie in CA, Julia in MN, MJ in CO, Renea in OK, Tanis in NJ, Jean in CA, Christy in FL, Gina in NC and Angela in IN. (How do you become a Loopy Groupie? When we have sent out six packages to you, we will be sending you a Loopy Groupie gift bag! You’ll get an email when we have posted the Sneak Up from week to week, along with Loopy Groupie Appreciation gifts a couple of times a year. Watch for another one of those coming in the next few weeks – we have something fun on order for you!)

Happy Thing #4: We’re finally Loopified! I’ll do a Loopy Central tour in Monday’s blog post.

Happy Thing #5: I have loved reading all of your blog comments for our October contest. But I’m not through them all yet and I want to get through them before I announce the winner. (The winner is random – but I still want to finish reading all of those 443 comments before I end the contest!) Really, it has made me wonder what my kids will remember as their “favorite recipes” that I made in their growing up years.

Happy Thing #6: Peanut Butter Brownies. Oh-my-gosh good.

Peanut Butter Brownies

2 eggs
1 stick of margarine, softened
1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
1 box Duncan Hines butter recipe cake mix
bag of peanut butter chips (about 10 oz)
(can also add chopped nuts if you like nuts)

Peanut Butter Cream Frosting

1 cup powdered sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
4 Tbl. milk
4 Tbl. margarine, softened
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup peanut butter

Mix eggs, 1 stick of margarine, brown sugar and cake mix in a bowl. Mix on low speed for 1 minute. Scrape bowl and then mix on low for 2 more minutes. Fold in peanut butter chips by hand. Spread evenly in a greased 9 x 13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Cool completely, frost and cut.

Frosting: Put powdered sugar, salt, milk, 4 Tbl. margarine, vanilla and peanut butter in bowl and mix well. (Add more milk if the frosting isn’t creamy enough.) Frost brownies when they are cool. (Note – this frosting is so good, and would be excellent on a regular box mix of chocolate brownies, too!)

(Kristin – you’re right – I did forget to share the great pumpkin recipe from my friend Christy! I’ll make it up and share that soon. Thanks for the reminder.)

Happy Thing #7: It’s the weekend!

Sheri haveanyhappythingstosharetoday?

Things I haven’t been doing today:

- Knitting
- Blogging
- Walking to work
- Having a latte
- Reading the mail

Things I have been doing today:

- Getting your orders out (with much help from the Elves)
- Driving more stuff to the Loopy Office from home
- Grocery shopping
- Talking on the phone
- Watching the goofy cats play

Things I’m looking forward to doing tomorrow:

- Having College Boy home on Fall Break
- Finishing up some things at Loopy Central (with latte in hand)
- Taking some pictures over there to share with you
- Doing some good cooking and baking
- Knitting and watching a movie

And how about you? Been doing (or not doing) anything special today??

Sheri makingbrownieswithpeanutbutterfrostingtonight
willhavetosharethatrecipewithyouonFriday-YUM!

We’re back up and running in the new space – yay! We shipped orders on Friday and Saturday (which you know, if you had some “pending” while we moved) and we’re ready to do all of your weekend Sneak Up orders today. Did I throw you by having a Saturday night Sneak Up? There were so many lines that we had come in during the week, and I knew that some of you were waiting on a few of those. (Including Claudia – and more Peppermint Mocha, Louet - just in time for the two-yarns/colors Q4 Challenge, Shibui Knits – although some are on backorder, Apple Laine, Nature’s Palette, Trekking – lots of new colors!, Austermann Step – lots of new colors!, Sockina, Oceanwind Knits – almost sold out but more shipping next week, Stitchkeepers, Honey House Bee Bars, Zecca, and patterns by Cookie A and Heartstrings – fun new lace ones in there.) Whew! Now that those are all up, we can focus on taking new photos of the stuff waiting in the wings. Here’s the Sheepaints sock that I knit up – isn’t it pretty? Sabine sent us some beautiful colorways from Germany that will go up in the next Sneak Up. We also have Numma Numma almost ready to go up (you’ll remember the fingerless gloves that I knit with that – gorgeous stuff), more Seacoast, Mrs. Kwitty’s bags, and Ham’s Jam Yarn Cruisers in new fabrics. We’ll see what else arrives this week in time for photo-ing.

The New Loopy Room is …. not completely Loopified yet. Close, but not yet. I’ll take in-progress photos again soon. I suspect that space will constantly be evolving, just like the “old” Loopy Room did. We’re going to have a Loopy Wall of Fame in there so that when you come visit, you can sign it and we can remember that you were here! (Ok – maybe not ON the wall. Not sure the landlord would like that. But maybe we’ll have a giant sock blocker to sign, or something. We’ll get shopping hours up and going in November.) Look at this cute SHEEP cookie bouquet that my sweet friend Monica sent last week! It was fun to see that come through the door.

I have winners for the Q3 Challenge! You all did such an amazing job on your projects, and there were a LOT of votes cast. The winner of the random drawing was Alison with her gorgeous Seraphim Shawl. (Alison – you also had a lot of votes, so it’s fun that you won the random drawing!) The winner of the “Knitter’s Choice” award with the most votes was Alex for her amazing Norwegian Stocking. (Alex – did you knit one sock or a pair? People want to know!) It was fun to see all of the photos come in. Do feel free to continue to add to any of the Challenge Photo Galleries as you finish up – people still love looking at them and I know many of you have said you’re still working on it. (And don’t forget Q4, now in progress!)

On the knitting front, here is the Alpaca Sox that I knit up while in Colorado. This yarn is so wonderfully warm and will keep your feet happy all winter long. I’m knitting this pair up for a friend who is making me a beautiful felted tote in exchange for it. She likes blues to wear with her jeans, and this colorway was perfect. Now I’m working on another yarn line that we have coming in sometime in November (which I haven’t told you about yet. These are definitely going to be Happy Socks, guaranteed to chase away the winter blues.) I also have several new Heartstrings lace patterns that were tempting me when I was putting them away this week. Like this one, and this one, and this one (and it ought to be noted that I don’t even wear things like this. They just look so beautiful that I’m thinking I need to make one or two.) I also liked this and this and this. Maybe for some Christmas gifts this year.

On the home front – the cats seem to be getting along well. Here they are intent on chasing the laser light across the floor. They seem to love pouncing on each other and rolling around. Zoe (on the left) has such huge eyes that I think Gracie gets intimidated as they sit and stare at each other. Gracie will bob her head and chatter, and then dash around Zoe in an attempt to get her rolling and playing. My friend Sharon assures me that the pouncing and rolling is all good cat play. No one is hissing or growling, so I have to assume that everyone is happy. Right?

Sheri yourfavoriterecipememoriesareWONDERFULbutIgethungryreadingallofyourcomments

So technically, it’s still Friday. At least here in the midwest. What a busy week! I don’t have Loopy pictures today, because now I’ll wait and show you when we’re all done. I will say that that set of shelves along the green wall from Wednesday’s post is full of Cherry Tree Hill and Apple Laine, and it looks beautiful! All of the bags and cases of yarn are put away …. and all of the shelves are completely full. So, we have more shelves coming on Monday. (Because we have more yarn arriving daily around here.) Things are almost feeling Loopy over there. I’m thinking about another week and we’ll have it completely Loopified. I’ll keep you posted. (You all have been so nice about wanting to see photos!) Monday, it’s back to business as usual here at The Loopy Ewe – yay!

Have you ever been completely frustrated with automated phone systems? I had to call AT&T this week. We had our phones switched over, and had to get new phone numbers. The gal taking the order assured me that the toll-free number would stay the same, as it’s a “forwarding number”. However, when I tried it out after the technician left, there was a recording that stated that number had been disconnected and giving our new (local – so not toll-free) number. All I needed to do was call someone at AT&T to tell them that the forwarding wasn’t working. I spent 45 minutes on the phone. What was I doing? Oh, entering my “account number” 9 different times, picking “the option that best describes the problem” about 15 times, finally reaching someone and then being put on hold because she was “residential” and I needed “business”. (Although I picked the “business” option several times before reaching her.) When she told me she’d have to transfer me, I said, “Don’t put me on hold! I can’t get out of that endless loop to get a real person!” She said, “I understand. I won’t.” And then proceeded to do just that and I was then disconnected and had to start all over again. (Yes, I do know about hitting “O” for Operator, or pushing the # or the * buttons. I tried it all. I guess the phone company is wise to all of those tricks.) Needless to say, I was completely frustrated with that phone company at the end of all of this. Today, I had to call back. But, this time I had a real number and got a real person who quickly solved the next phone problem that had come up, went the extra mile with her customer service, sent out an extremely helpful techinician within 2 hours, and restored my faith in the phone company. Or at least restored my faith in her part of the phone company. I really really can’t stand automated phone systems, though.

Today’s recipe is from my Grandma Bass (from Germany) and was probably my very favorite thing that she made. She used to have one ready for me every time I visited, and every time I came home for a break from college. My mom brought this one over to us this week, knowing that we needed a little extra TLC in the midst of moving-mayhem.

Grandma’s Hefekranz

5 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
3 eggs, beaten + 1 egg white
4 Tbl. shortening, melted and cooled
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla
3/4 cup raisins
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 Tbl. yeast
powdered sugar

- Dissolve yeast in 1/2 cup warm water. Add a pinch of sugar to it and let it rise for 5 minutes.
- Mix dry ingredients. Add in raisins.
- Add in yeast mixture, vanilla, 3 beaten eggs and shortening. Mix and knead well.
- Let rise until double. Punch down and let rest for 5 minutes.
- Divide into 3 equal balls. Roll out each ball into a long tube shape and braid the 3 of them together. Cover with a damp cloth and let rise until double.
- Brush top with egg white.
- Bake at 325 degrees for 40 minutes. Let cool and then sprinkle with powdered sugar.

(One time my mom made this for me for my birthday and dropped it off while it was still warm. I took the towel off the top and there were strings poked down into the top at regular intervals. I asked what the strings were for and found out that she had put birthday candles in the top and the warmth from the Hefenkranz had melted the skinny little candles into puddles and left the wicks hanging there!)

So this month’s contest is simple – what is your favorite recipe that you remember someone special making for you or for family gatherings in your childhood? (Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt, Uncle, etc.) You don’t have to share the recipe – but tell us what it was in the comments. (Of course if it’s really good, you’re always welcome to share the recipe!) I’ll use the random number generator to draw a winner from all of the comments during this next week, and the winner will receive $25 in Loopy Bucks!

Sheri foundacuteredKitchenaidcoffeemakerfortheLoopyofficebutitwas$99forpete’ssake!
Needlesstosay,Ididn’tgetit.($99,areyoukiddingme?)