Three things that I find unbelievable:

1. It was 73 degrees at noon yesterday and hailing and snowing by dinnertime. FPS. What a weird place to live.
2. The number of boxes of yarn that have arrived in the last two days, waiting to be unloaded and inventoried and put up. Poor Elf Kathy is pulling her hair out.
3. The responses from last week’s blog contest. I have loved going through them, and have read every single one. There were way too many times when I sat there reading, thinking, “Oh, me too!” And of course I was all ready to click on “reply” to tell each of you what I loved about your posts …. and then realized I cannot reply to them all and still get through all 549 of them. Just know that there were many I wanted to reply to. I’ll pick a random winner on Friday!

Three things I did with College Guy, who was home for a long weekend and went back to school yesterday:

1. Played Guitar Heroes. (He’s really good. I’m really not.)
2. Watched movies. (I knit during them. He does not.)
3. Stayed up late and got up early. (He stayed up late and got up late. Parents can’t usually do that. Someone has to go to work to pay those college bills.)

Three commonly “stashed” items from last week’s contest:

1. Tea. So many of you have a tea cabinet. I have a coffee/tea cabinet and have a habit of buying tea, even though I rarely drink it. My friend Wendy (also a Loopy Elf) has special tea cabinet knobs on her tea cabinet. I like that!
2. Black beans. This I don’t understand at all. I don’t like black beans.
3. Lotions. I totally understand this one and am guilty as well. Never mind that I usually forget to use it. At least I have a good supply on hand.

Three things I’m currently knitting:

1. A sock out of that skein of Neighborhood Fiber Co. sock yarn that I showed you on the blog awhile back. It’s going to be one of my favorite socks – I can already tell. I will have to knit the partner to it.
2. The shawl-that-I-will-never-get-through but am determined to finish for the Q1-08 Challenge.
3. This yarn from a new indie dyer. Ok, so technically I haven’t started knitting it yet, but it’s sitting here on my desk, teasing me. I refuse to wind it until project #1 is finished. I must not be distracted. But OH am I ever dying to start it. (Notice I did not commit to leaving it alone until project #2 is finished. I’m no idiot.)

Three things I just don’t understand from last week’s blog contest:

1. Mashed potato fudge. Ugh.
2. Jenn, who forgets that she has ice cream in the freezer after she has tried a bowl of it. (Are you kidding me??)
3. All of you who have an excess of chocolate and wonder if this is a problem. (Um …. no. It’s not.)

Sheri thedeliverymanjustdroppedoffmorenewyarnshelvesforus
andgrabbedahandfulofLoopykissesonhiswayout.Thatbigbowl
isjusttoodarnedtemptingsittingthere.MyUPSgaltakeshandfuls,too.

Today, we’re starting a new regular feature on the blog called “The Loopy Limelight”. This will showcase different people in the Loopy Family (and that includes all of you!) from week to week. I’ve been wanting to start this for a long time, as I have gotten to know many of you and keep thinking that you all need to know each other, too! So I’ll share some of my friends with you, and some of the Loopy Elves, and some other interesting people that I think you ought to know. We’ll make this a “most Mondays” feature. Enjoy!

This week I want to introduce you to a friend of mine who is an amazing cook, gardener, and businesswoman – Leigh Anne from Oregon. I’ll let Loopy do the talking……

Loopy: Thanks for being our first Loopy Limelight guest, Leigh Anne! Tell everyone how you and Sheri met.
Leigh Anne: I am excited and honored to be a guest on The Loopy Ewe Blog. I’ve known Sheri for quite a long time – I met Sheri over 15 years ago when we were both involved in another business. During this time I grew to love and admire Sheri and her business skills and savvy. When she told me she was starting “The Loopy Ewe” I couldn’t wait to check it out and have become a frequent visitor to her site and blog. (Especially on Fridays when she shares a recipe)

Loopy: Well I hear you’re quite the gardener, and quite the cook. But do you knit?
Leigh Anne: I am not a regular knitter. In fact I didn’t even know there was such a thing as sock yarn! I have knit a few scarves in my life but that is it. But I do have a great love and appreciation for knitting as my grandmother was a knitter “extraordinaire”. If she wasn’t cooking or cleaning she had a pair of knitting needles in her hands. She knit ALL the time.

Loopy: Aah. It’s in your genes. We’ll get you eventually, I’m sure. But in the meantime, you like knitters and what they make, right?
Leigh Anne: I do! I have many treasures that my grandmother made for me – a beautiful blanket she knit that was used on my “blessing day” at church, an elegant crocheted tablecloth, hand knit Barbie doll clothes, stuffed animals, sweaters and more. But the one thing that I treasure and remember more than any other item my grandmother knit were her “loopy” mitts. (Pretty appropriate to be sharing on the Loopy Ewe – don’t you think!) I am sure my grandmother made 100’s of pairs of loopy mitts during her life – everyone wanted a pair of loopy mitts – all my friends had them. We even sold them at the church bazaar to raise money to build a new church. My grandmother invented loopy mitts and to my knowledge there was never a pattern left behind. They were actually made with four needles and I remember how fast my grandmother’s hands would move when she made these mitts – amazing! I grew up in Wisconsin so I loved these mitts because they kept my hands so warm with all the little yarn loops on the inside – thus the name “loopy mitts”. As you can see from the picture these mittens were well used and loved. These are the last two remaining pairs I have.

Loopy: So you really haven’t been inspired to get knitting again in your life?
Leigh Anne: Well, no. Not yet! But Sheri has inspired me in many other ways. One of those ways was to start a blog of my own. I loved visiting Sheri’s blog so much I decided I wanted one of mine own so I began www.yourhomebasedmom.com – a blog where I share tips and ideas for women who run a homebased business and I even share recipes too.

Loopy: We love good recipes. What did you pick our for us today?
Leigh Anne: Three things I know about Sheri – she loves to knit, she loves to shop and she loves chocolate. So the recipe I am sharing is for “Nordy Bars” They were originally made and sold (unfortunately they have stopped making them) at the Nordstrom Café – a place I know Sheri likes to shop. They are also rich, gooey and full of chocolate! So I hope you enjoy them!

Loopy: YUM! These look wonderful – thank you for sharing them! One last thing – can you share with us a good book recommendation, a good (already out on dvd) video recommendation, and a good music recommendation? (Because knitters like to knit to music and movies and books on tape.)
Leigh Anne: A good book – this is a hard one because I do read a lot and have a lot of books I love. My favorite genre is historical fiction – some of my favorites are “Women of the Silk”, “Snowflower and the Secret Fan” and my most recent read is “Moloka’i” – the story of the leper colony on the Hawaiian Island of the same name – a tragic story yet one full of strength, fortitude and courage. I have also had fun this year reading the vampire series – Twilight, New Moon and Ecllipse along with my teenager daughter – who wouldn’t fall in love with a vampire!? See I knew I couldn’t recommend just one book! I am also a huge Jane Austen fan – have read Pride and Prejudice many times! Favorite movie is Gone with the Wind and Mrs. Potter. Favorite music – I am a Broadway Musical Soundtrack fan – my favorites tend to be those songs my children are currently singing for whatever production they are in! I love to sing along very loudly in the car to the Mama Mia soundtrack and Wicked is another current favorite My cell phone ring is “Love Shack”!

Nordy Bars
1/2 cup butter
1 pkg. butterscotch chips
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs

1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla
1 pkg. semisweet chocolate chips
2 cups miniature marshmallows

In medium sauce pan melt butter, add butterscotch chips and brown sugar. Stir until melted (this may look a little strange but it will be o.k)

Remove from heat, add eggs, flour, baking powder, and salt. Add vanilla and set aside and cool.

When cool stir in chocolate chips, marshmallows and nuts if desired. Spread in an ungreased 9 x 13 pan. Bake 25 minutes at 350. Remove and cool – they will be soft and gooey when you take them out – they will set up as they cool. Enjoy!

Sheri hopeyouenjoyedmeetingLeighAnne-gocheckoutherblogformoregoodrecipes!

I’ve been on a cleaning kick this week, and I have discovered some alarming things. Remember my problem with frozen chicken br**sts? (Why the stars? I don’t want to be attached to a google-search for that word…..) I have shared with you that I keep buying bags of chicken, because I’m always sure that we’re “out” at home. Well, apparently that’s not all I tend to buy without reason. This week I attacked the pantry and guess what? I found 4 cans of evaporated milk. First of all, I can’t remember the last time I used evaporated milk. And secondly, the only thing I think I use it for is mashed potatoes and fudge, neither of which has been made in this house for a long time. So – weird. The next thing I discovered “en masse” was almonds. Seven bags of them, all unopened. At least I had the good sense to buy different types. There were whole almonds, there were slivered almonds, and there were sliced almonds. I’m good. I think that I had intended to make a few batches of this incredible recipe and couldn’t remember what kind of almonds it called for. But I know that I didn’t buy these packages all at once – they accumulated. I know this because they were all in different spots in the pantry. FPS.

Just so you don’t think my problem is limited to food, I also cleaned out my closet this week. (I took Monday off – remember? I got a LOT done.) I actually sorted my shirts by color (I know. Too much.) and guess what I found out? I have a problem with white shirts. You wouldn’t believe how many white shirts are in my closet. Now in my defense, this is a completely different situation than four cans of evaporated milk. None of these shirts are exactly alike. There are different fabrics, different necklines, different sleeve lengths, and different styles. But still. I don’t think that on the days that I’m going to wear a white shirt, I need to have that many choices to face in the morning. FPS.

So, here is where the contest comes in. I want to know that I am not alone in this lunacy. Surely there are some of you out there who have an overabundance of something in your freezer/fridge/pantry/closet, that you never intended to have in abundance. Please tell me I’m not alone in this. And yarn doesn’t count because there is no recognized word in a knitter’s language that translates to “excess” or “overabundance”. Fortunately. Leave your answer in the comments section, and I will draw a name next Friday, February 1st, for the winner. What does the winner get? A skein of Wollmeise Sock Yarn. I thought that would be a good way to start out our monthly blog contests for 2008. And for those of you who don’t have this little problem? You can still enter the contest. Just leave a comment and say, “I don’t seem to have that problem.” and consider yourself entered. I will try to contain my jealousy.

Speaking of contest winners, thank you to everyone who cast votes for the Q4 Challenge this week! There were actually several entries that ran neck and neck with a lot of votes, but the one that got the most votes was the Anemoi-Inspired Mittens, done by Nicole. So Nicole gets the Knitters Choice Award – a $25 Loopy Gift Certificate. And the randomly drawn winner from all of the entries was the Monkey Socks by Karen! Karen also gets a $25 Loopy Gift Certificate. It’s always so fun to see the different interpretations you all come up with for the Quarterly Knitting Challenges. You still have over 2 months left to participate in the Q1-08 – I hope you’ll join us!

Monday we will start a new, regular blog feature called The Loopy Limelight! We have so many fun and interesting people who have become part of the Loopy Family (and that includes all of you) and I thought it would be nice to introduce you to some of them. Monday, I will introduce you to a longtime friend of mine, who has a wonderful recipe (it contains chocolate – yum!) that she is going to share. We’re looking forward to sharing many more people with you in the weeks and months to come, usually on Mondays. We hope this brings some fun recipes and tips and inspiration for all of you.

Sheri anyonehaveanygoodrecipesthatusealmonds,chickenbr**stsand/orevaporatedmilk??

Well I know that I told you I’d put a photo of our Indie Dyer visitor on Monday’s blog, but I forgot it was a holiday here. I decided that I needed a haircut more than I needed to blog – ha! So Monday was a nice day off and I got lots done. (Following a weekend of knitting and movie watching with Knitting Daughter, which was also wonderful.) But now we’re back, full speed ahead! We were happy to have Stephanie from Spritely Goods pop by for a visit on Friday Stephanie lives in Arizona and was in town on business, so she rented a car and drove down to Loopy for a couple of hours during a morning off. It was so fun to have her here! She gathered up all of the Spritely Goods yarn that we had left in stock (and it’s not much – it’s pretty well sold out) and we took her photo. Fortunately, she just shipped us another large order, which we’ll put up as soon as it arrives.

One of the things I did this weekend was to frog the Fleece Artist Sea Silk lace shawl that I started awhile (ok, QUITE awhile) back. I screwed up the rows and decided I needed to just start over. The bummer part is that I worked on it for a long time on Saturday and haven’t even knitted back as many rows as I frogged. Ugh. But it’s my Q1-08 Challenge and I will keep going on it. I’ll take a photo when there is something interesting to see. Right now, it’s still looking a bit pathetic. I did, however, finish my Noro Socks. I just did a basic knit with a bit of ribbing on the top. I knit them top down (short row heel, because I wanted the color bands to stay consistent) and I really love them. As I mentioned before, I handwash all of my socks, and these did soften up after washing. (They’re still not as soft as many socks I have, but they feel just fine on my feet and that’s the part that counts!) I have a few other colors that I want to do in the Noro. We have more of every color on backorder and they were hoping to have them in by the end of this month – then more in March. We’ll get that up asap. Keep an eye on the photo galleries, as people submit photos of the different Noro colorways and how they work up. (Have you checked out our photo galleries lately? The Socks on Trees gallery has almost 500 photos in it. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a photo of a sock done up in every colorway that we carry? I love seeing the finished sock photos pop up on the products pages.)

We’ve been re-stocking a bit here and there this week. More Knitting Pure and Simple patterns arrived, as well as the Sock Guides, and a lot more of our Loopy Totes. We put Knitspot patterns up over the weekend (some fun new ones, too) and Mountain Colors patterns as well. We also have a lot of new things for you for next week. Our Namaste bags have come in (and I still can’t decide which color and which style will be mine), the new Lorna’s Laces colors are here, more Sakina Needles roving, Numma Numma is back (yay!), a new order of Swiss Mountain Cashmere from Hand Maiden, Duets, and new bags (in blue and brown – one of my favorite color combos) from Mrs. Kwitty. And by next week’s Sneak Up, we’ll be on our new server. We might also have an updated “look” for the website, but we’re all weighing in with opinions and there are some …. differing opinions. So we’ll see what we end up with.

Sheri newblogcontestonFriday,socheckbackwithus!

It’s probably a given that in a week that contained a Wollmeise-fest and Sock Club notices would be a rather tough week for all. An “It bugs me” post seemed appropriate today, given the mood of things around here, and we haven’t done one in awhile. (Gracie’s list of what bugs her? When people interrupt a nap to take her photo.)

So here are the things that are bugging me today:

1. Sock club limitations. I hate telling people no. (I have referred to that before – remember the Spring Fling?) I think we have figured out a way to take double our numbers for next years club, so I hope those of you who didn’t get in this year will come back. We really want to make spots for you.

2. My ipod. Well, not the ipod, specifically, but I am tired of the songs on there and want new ones. I know you all gave me bunches of great music suggestions awhile back, but it’s just a matter of downloading all of that new music. Which I haven’t done yet. So I keep listening to the same ‘ol, same ‘ol. FPS.

3. Website slowness during a particularly busy Sneak Up. But the good news is that we have found a great new (very large) server and will be upgrading to that sometime next week. You shouldn’t notice any slowness during Sneak Ups any more, no matter how many of you are shopping at once. (Ahem – at least that’s the plan.) No Sneak Up next week so that we can switch over and get things running. The next one will be sometime the week of the 28th.

4. Haircuts. And highlights. I haven’t had time to get my haircut or have highlights done lately. Consequently, today is a very bad hair day. I’m glad you can’t see me. I wish I looked just fine with long, straight, one-color hair. But I kinda think I look like a dog that way. (One of those afghan hounds, you know?)

5. Dust. Why is it so relentless about wanting to cover all of the surfaces in my house all the time? What’s up with that?

6. Sugar and vegetables. Why is it that vegetables are “good” for you and sugar is “bad” for you? Why can’t it work so that everyone must have 3 servings of dessert a day, and vegetables are only allowed on occasion? Someone messed that up.

7. Political ads and commercials. It has barely started and I’m already tired of listening to them and seeing them. And it’s only gonna get worse. I wonder if any of the candidates knit? (Somehow I think not. But it’d be good for a few of them…..)

8. 24 hour days. I’d really prefer 36 hour days. Just sayin’.

I have more, but I’ll stop there for today. So to end on a positive note, it’s time for Q4 voting! Please head over to the Q4 Photo Gallery and then email me (sheriATtheloopyeweDOTcom) your vote for favorite project from last quarter. We will award Loopy Gift Certificates to one person randomly selected and one person who wins the “blog readers favorite” award. I’ll announce the winner next Friday!

(And I’d love to hear what bugs you today – but I already know about the not enough Wollmeise and not enough Sock Club spots ……..)

Sheri oneofourindiedyersisvisitingLoopytoday-I’llputherpictureonMonday’sblog!

Much to report on today. You might need to get a cup of coffee. Do you know about Cow Tipping? It’s an urban myth and it’s actually not possible, it turns out. Then there’s Tractor Tipping, as practiced by the funny folks vehicles in the Cars movie. Also, not possible. And lastly, there is Loopy Tipping. It has only happened a handful of times. You could count them on one hand and still have fingers leftover. So if you have experienced it, you’re lucky fortunate unique. It happened again on Monday night during the Wollmeise-fest. Web Guy and I sat at our computers, watching in disbelief. Website usage was 200% over our average and ….. Loopy tipped completely over with his toes tickling the air. (Do sheep have toes? No. I guess not. Hooves, right? Ok, his hooves were tickling the air.) So, apologies to any of you who were online when it happened, to any of you who have been “waiting for months to get a skein of Wollmeise” and didn’t get one, and to any of you for the slowness you experienced. We are researching another move to a bigger server once again, and I will also put future Wollmeise yarns up on their own, outside of an official Sneak Up. (The next order is due in about 6 weeks.) And a big thank you to all of you who were so wonderful and understanding about it all. We think you’re the best! (The nice thing about Loopy Tipping? He always lands in a nice big bed of Loopy kisses. There’s a lot to be said for that.)

On to my TNNA report! The weather was wonderful. This is a view out my hotel window on Saturday morning. The convention center was just a few blocks away. I had a great time connecting with all of our vendors and finding new things. I also had fun dining with the Dream in Color Wonder Girls (Veronica and Nancy) one night, and having lunch with Cookie A on another day. They all have exciting things planned and we had a great time talking. But you want to know what new things I found for all of us, don’t you? These orders will begin arriving soon, and will continue to trickle in through March, but I thought I’d let you know about all of them so that you can plan for it.

I was happy to get an order in with Karida at Neighborhood Fiber Co. We’ve been emailing since last fall, but she couldn’t take on any new accounts until this month. (And she hit her max again at TNNA. Everyone loves her yarn!) Her colors are deep and intense and wonderful. We have her Fingering weight, 2 different blends of lace weight, 2 different types of roving, and her Watershed Seacell Sock coming to us. We ordered a lot, so it will come in batches over the next several weeks. I’ll be working on knitting up a sock (ok, ok – maybe I’ll do a pair) from this skein of her fingering weight, so that you can see how it works up.

Next is Paca Peds, coming from The Alpaca Yarn Co. I got a skein of their yarn last summer at TNNA and starting testing it out a month ago. I love how it is knitting up. It’s going to be warm (that wonderful alpaca) but not fuzzy, so the stitch definition is easy to see. I’ll photo the sock (ok, ok – maybe I’ll do a pair) when I’m done and will share it on the blog. They have 10 colorways (more coming this summer) in regular, and then the same 10 colorways in their “Heels and Toes” line, where you get a coordinating mini skein of a solid color. We’ll have both lines for you.

Another great new company that we will have here soon is Farmhouse Yarns. This is a family owned business and I really enjoyed talking with them. They have a brand new sock yarn (not even up on their website yet) and I fell in love with it. It’s squishy and soft and beautifully dyed and I am anxious to get our order in. Here is the skein of it that I now have in my own stash, and again, I will knit up a sock (ok, ok – maybe I’ll do a pair) so that you can see how these colors blend together.

Due to popular demand and pleading, we have also added Great Adirondack Silky Sock. Patti’s colors are gorgeous. I had a hard time deciding which ones to get for us, because there are so many. (I think they told me over 100 colorways. They were all lined up on hanging dowels.) I picked a bunch, and we’ll add more over time. I have had this yarn in my stash for almost a year, and thought it was great when so many of you started asking for it on the Loopy Groupie board on Ravelry. We definitely needed it and I know you will like it, too.

We already have Lorna’s Laces (in fact we’ve had that line since we opened), but we have now decided to carry their roving, too. They have two different types – one is their Superwash Merino (great size for spinning yarn for socks) and the other is their 100% wool in a big 10 oz. package, wonderful for spinning yarn for other things. I already know how much you like their colorways, so it will be nice to have their roving here as well. They also have a few new colorways just out, which we are expecting to arrive any day. One of them is this blue/green combination in the roving photo above. I’m looking forward to spinning that. (It has been hard to have all of the beautiful roving arriving at Loopy Central every week. Each one is prettier than the next. I don’t know how I managed to avoid the allure of spinning for so long. All of you non-spinners, watch out. It will catch you when you least expect it. And you really ought to just go with it.)

Chameleon Colorworks is another new line for us (and another person that I first started talking to last fall. I like to think things through, don’t I?) Nancy has a great array of colors and fibers and we are glad to be adding two of their lines to The Loopy Ewe (and possibly more in the future.)

I have also added some patterns (Chrissy Gardiner - she does great sock and lace patterns), more Offhand Designs totes (the new fabrics are so fun – including a red bulls eye, which of course I had to order for myself. It’s red.), the new Malibu and Laguna Cali bags from Namaste, and more accessories which will be arriving soon. Here’s how I picked which style and colors of the new Cali bags to order. I met Jess and Casey (from Ravelry) in the Namaste booth. Jess was trying to pick out one of the new bags for herself. I said, “I can’t decide. Which style do you like best?” (there were 2). Jess said, “I don’t know! It’s too hard to decide.” (My problem exactly.) So I said, “Ok, then which colors do you think are just so-so and I can do without?” (there were 6). She said, “I don’t know. They’re all great!” (My problem exactly.) So I bought both styles in all the colors. I am definitely nabbing one of those bags, too. Although I have no idea which style, and no idea which color because I still like them all. I have a bag problem. Does anyone else suffer from that? (Well, you can’t really call it “suffering” now, can you?)

And because you can “shop for your shop” at TNNA but you can’t really buy things to take home for yourself (and you really want to after seeing all of that yarny wonder), I had to go to a local yarn shop to get my yarn fix. Loopy friend Sharon picked me up for lunch and yarning on Sunday and we went to this very nice shop. I bought some Prism yarn and a pattern to make a purse. (A purse. Who would’ve predicted that I’d buy that? You see? It’s not all about socks, all the time. Just most of the time.) By the time we were done there, it was time to race to the airport to catch my plane home. (Actually, it was past time. But you know how it goes when you’re shopping for yarn.) I’m glad to be back – even with the Loopy Tipping.

We’ll send out the Sock Club Spot emails to those who are in, later today or tomorrow. There were several hundred emails to go through and it took us a bit longer than expected. Frankly, we’d just as soon have every one of you join us. But we’re a bit limited in what we can ask our dyers to do. We have room for 225 total and had more than double that wanting spots. If you don’t hear from us by tomorrow night, we’d love to have you come back next year.

Sheri nowneedingtoknitupaLOTofnewsocks.Ibettergetworking.