As promised, we have our very own Web Guy in the Loopy Limelight today. Most of you know that Web Guy is also known as “College Guy” and “Our Favorite Son”, too. We’re lucky to have him in our family AND here at The Loopy Ewe! (And we have one son and one daughter, so we can call him “our favorite son” without slighting anyone else. As you might guess, Knitting Daughter is also “our favorite daughter”. Nice how that works out.) I thought you might like knowing more about him today. We couldn’t do The Loopy Ewe without him! Thanks to those of you who emailed questions for him.
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Loopy: Hi Web Guy! So the first person wants to know: “Did Web Guy design your superb web site?”
Web Guy: Yes. When we first started, we wanted something nice and simple. The default blogging theme we were going to use for this blog seemed really simple and well laid-out, so I decided to build off of that and add a bunch of things here and there to make it good for an online shop. Since then and as we add new features, we’ve kept adapting it while trying to keep the site easy to use. A bunch of features came about because customers suggested them (like having little magnifiers on the corner of thumbnails…that’s pretty nifty).

Loopy: The Loopy Lady has mentioned in the blog before how you started building our website using one of the typical “template” e-commerce sites out there, but decided that you wanted to be able to add in too many unique things to it and so started over to build it our own the way, so that it would work best for us. I’m glad you did! Part two of the question above: “If so, did Web Guy study web design somewhere?”
Web Guy: Not really. I just end up browsing around the web and looking at a lot of different types of websites as I’m doing various projects and am always picking up new ideas to try and also ideas to avoid.

Loopy: Good point. It’s also good to know things to avoid as well. The next person wanted to know, “What is the most important thing he learned from his mother, and from his father?”
Web Guy: To find something you enjoy doing and do it – and it’s exponentially better if you can bring along others to help and enjoy it with you. Both have started their own businesses and, while frequently time consuming, you get to be directly involved with something that’s bigger than a plan you could have come up with individually. I mean, it’s really cool to be a part of a small, young business and community of over 30 countries like TLE. Not many kids are lucky enough to be a part of that, much less see how that happens and learn through it.

Loopy: You’d think there would be a way to come up with a business plan that necessitates us traveling to all of those countries “for business purposes”, right? The next person said, “I would like to ask WG if he liked his internship in Florida and how he compares life here and there for somebody his age?”
Web Guy: The summer in Florida has been pretty amazing (this is going to be my last week here…) and Sentry Data Systems is about the best technology service company I could have imagined to intern with. It was a bit weird living away from Home and Loopy Central – apparently they got a little crazy without me … going and doubling their space … good grief – but, it was fun. I lived with a couple friends from school (Taylor University) in Fort Lauderdale which was great. (Don’t tell the Loopy Lady – but I think every college person definitely needs at least one summer away from home … it was a whole barrel of new experiences and living/working with friends made it much more fun.)

Loopy: Ok, Web Guy. That is our secret. (But I think she agrees with you. Although I know for certain how much you were missed around here this summer.) The next person asks, “Now I want Web Guy to tell us how he got so smart, so young, that he could put together your fabulous web site.”
Web Guy: I ate my fruits and veggies as a kid. Other than that, I just like experimenting and trying new things and then applying them. It’s a vicious cycle, really.

Loopy: The Loopy Lady says you’re right – you were always good about eating those things. Another question, “I’d be curious to know how Web Guy got interested in computers in the first place.”
Web Guy: I don’t know – for as long as I remember, there’s always been some piece of technological equipment around that I could push buttons on and try to break. Lots of people use them and get frustrated when they break…I get curious about why they broke. But I guess that’s what a Web Guy is supposed to be, right?

Loopy: The curiosity sounds good. We hope that not too many things will break on the website for you to deal with, though! The LL says that you were hooked on computers from the first time you sat down to one, which was when you were about two. I guess computers have come a LONG way since then. What feature on the Loopy website was the most challenging one for you to write up?
Web Guy: Hmm, well, not sure which was the most challenging, but I think the most fun and interesting thing I’ve worked on is the yarn color finder. I’d never done much with color matching (still am a novice) so it took a bunch of time and reading, and then I’ve been experimenting ever since. It’s not perfect yet, but there aren’t too many sites around that let you find items by color, so I couldn’t resist putting that online for Loopy visitors to try out a while ago. When I first put it up, we only had a few hundred of our items colorized … now we’re up to most all of our products which is pretty cool. (P.S. – it doesn’t show out of stock products in your color search results now.)

Loopy: My personal favorite color is red. Like my socks. In case anyone wanted to know. So, what is the best and worst part of being The Loopy Ewe Web Guy?
Web Guy: There are definitely several “bests”: having a reason and purpose to learn and apply new technology/ideas, getting exposure to the business side of my Computer Science degree, and also being a part of a unique business that has such a fun community around it. As far as a worst part, hmmm. It’s a bit difficult being both College Guy and Web Guy – both are really fun and great experiences … it’s just a matter of finding the right amount of time for both. Also, maybe being relatively clueless about the various types of yarn we sell, but I try to leave that all up to the Loopy Lady.

Loopy: And I know that she is just as happy to leave the technology side of things up to you! Do you have any friends who are knitters? Do you knit?
Web Guy: Well, if you’re counting all the people I’ve gotten to meet through TLE, I’ve got a whole world of knitting friends. I do have a few friends who knit though – but being stuck in the Computer Science Department doesn’t typically lend itself to inviting the college knitting masses to bring their yarns and needles to sit behind computer screens. If you’re asking TLE Web Guy if he knows how to knit, he knows the basics … if you’re asking normal College Guy, he pretends to be a little more clueless.

Loopy: I think that the Loopy Lady just wanted to make sure you knew what this knitting thing was all about when she made you try a few rows one time! Too bad it didn’t stick, because we all think that knitting would make a good pastime for any college student or full-time employee who needs some relaxing downtime. Or pretty much anyone else, for that matter. Any sneak peaks at new features that you are working on for the website?
Web Guy: Well, let’s see. One thing that we’re working on is finding a better way to browse through our online shop. It’s kind of annoying to have to always go by category when maybe you want to go by vendor or weight or material or color. Another fun thing in the works has to do with connecting together the knitting world, blogging world, and The Loopy Ewe. Oftentimes people link their blog posts to the yarns and products they used when they are finished. Soon we’ll be showing some trackbacks for our products and vendors to let people see what the blogging world has said about them and see how products turned out. Feel free to send us your ideas, too. We’re always interested.

Loopy: Thanks for taking time out to talk with us, Web Guy. You’re the best!
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Sheri athomewejustcallhimDanny.Welikethatnameforhim,too

Do you mostly knit for yourself, or do most of your handknits end up being for someone else? I find that I mostly knit for myself these days. I’m not sure why. I decided pretty early on that if I was going to do gift knitting, it was going to go to someone who’d really appreciate the time and effort that went into it. (Like another knitter, or someone else who works with their hands.) The exception is knitting for babies. I haven’t had any babies to knit for, but when I do, it will be just for the fun of making those tiny cute outfits/socks/hats/whatever and it’s totally fine that the baby won’t know the difference between that and the storebought ones! Babies are the exception. (Now I just need to wait for some babies to appear in my life. Well, not in MY life, per se, but you know what I mean.)

Miss Violet emailed me yesterday to let me know about a special new concept in dyeing that she has come up with, and it started me thinking about knitting for others. She calls this line of hers “Intention Yarn” and here is what she had to say about it:

“As prayer-shawl knitters will tell you, there is a certain power in knitting something with meditative intention. There’s a whole school of thought that says that the love you’re feeling when you’re knitting something for someone can be felt when the recipient uses the item.

Lime & Violet’s Intention Yarns takes this concept one step further, attempting to start the process from the very dyeing of the yarn to be used in the project of your choice.

Intention Yarns are dyed using the same process as most hand-dyed or hand-painted yarns, with colors that are selected for a relevance and conveyance of the yarn’s purpose. During the last step, however, just before the skeins are steamed and the dye set, we write the word or phrase on the skein, like you see in the “love” photo.

The final knitted object doesn’t show much sign of the original word, but while knitting with these yarns, every so often, you come across a very small “spot” of the word, which serves as a mental reminder to refocus your attentions back on your wishes and prayers for the project. It’s very subtle, but effective as a reminder to keep your attention and intention on the recipient or focus of the project.”

We are so happy to be getting Miss Violet’s first batch of Intention Yarns here at The Loopy Ewe. (And in the future, you will only find them here and on her website.) This first batch will include 15 different colorways. They are: Peace, Balance, Love, Clarity, Strength, Connection, Healing, Patience, Joy, Faith, Hope (shown at the top of the page), Fertility, Perserverence, Courage, and Creative Inspiration (shown here).

She also says, “The colors will remain constant (but handpainted, expect a few variances between skeins and dye lots), with one exception: Creative Inspiration is different every time, an explosion of colors on a white base, to simulate the creative process.”

Watch for this yarn to arrive and go up on the website in about 2 weeks. We think it’s a very special idea and we know you’ll like it for knitting beautiful things for those you love.

Now we have some prizes to give away! Y’all outdid yourselves in the comments section from last Friday – woohoo! We have loved every comment that you left and we’re going to go back to them whenever we have a bad day! (Not that we have many bad days. But I’m a little concerned that several of you mentioned we ought to avoid “The Terrible Twos” stage. We hope to do just that.) For this contest, we had over 1600 comments, so we’re giving away prizes to 16 different people! Each prize package includes one skein of Wollmeise, one skein of yarn from another one of our awesome indie dyers, one Loopy Red Canvas Sock Bag, one sock pattern, and one Loopy Ewe pin for your knitting bag. We hope you love it! The packages are going out to these 16 randomly drawn people: Julie-Ann in Jamaica, Theo in OR, Teri in VA, Kirstie in Canada, Debbie in WA, Cathy in VA, Erin in MN, Nancy in IA, Liz in IL, Adina in OR, Heather in OH, Janet in CA, Karin in NC, Michelle in IL, Tammy in CA, and Sheryl in VA. All of the winners have been sent an email, so if you’re wondering if it’s YOU, check your in-box!

So – do you knit more for yourself or more for others? We’re curious!

Sheri thisnewyarnmightjustinspiremetoknitforothersmoreoften

It had to happen. You don’t combine your space with the space next door without a lot of pounding going on. It started with the walls, and now it’s in my head, FPS! I know it’s good news – it means that we’re getting closer to expanding. But oh my, it has been noisy here. I snuck in and took a picture. They’ve been cutting through the drywall and are working on taking down the metal frames today. (See the far wall in the photo? That backs up to this one and will be taken down at the very end.) It will be nice when it’s all done and we can show you fun pictures of the new space instead of messy ones.

Speaking of fun pictures, look at these two cute boys with their Loopified tattoos! I think they are wearing them proudly. When we get done sorting out all of the kits, we’ll put the extra Loopified Tattoos and the Loopy Ewe pins up on the website for you. Coffee Mugs? That was a “kit only” item. We’ve had about 7 break in transit so far (out of the 400 kits). Even though those are pretty good odds, it still reinforces our opinion that we don’t want to carry them all the time. We’ll do another cool kit sometime late fall or early winter and we’ll add another mug to that one, too. We know that there are a lot of you who wanted them and didn’t get one.

We had a great weekend with Janice and her family – very relaxing, lots of knitting and movies. (Although we did manage to hang out at Loopy for awhile and catch brunch at Granite City after church on Sunday. Remember the amazing cinnamon rolls that they have? YUM.) Zoe-the-cat who always curls up on my lap when I knit, decided that she’d rather sit with Janice’s Daughter K-L for the afternoon. You’d never know that K-L is allergic to cats, would you? She’s working on a scarf out of All Things Heather. We were all knitting scarves this weekend. I knit one up out of a skein of my Sanguine Gryphon handspun roving - the first time I had ever actually knit something with my spinning. I’m washing and blocking it today, so will show you the finished product when it dries.

The happy anniversary comments you have been leaving are so wonderful! We love reading them. A few of you have mentioned that the higher the comment-number goes, the less chance there is to win. Not true. We just add in more prizes so that your odds stay the same. It’s our anniversary, after all. We want to give lots away!

Sheri whoalreadytooktwoAleveforthepoundingheadandit’snothelping. . . . .

I’m really not a “limelight” sort of a person. But enough of you have asked when I’d be in the Limelight (and a few of you have asked more than once!), that I’m giving up and doing it. Under duress. And since Loopy already knows all about me, we’re using the questions that you have sent in for the format today. Thanks to those of you who sent them! Next week, I’m bribing Web Guy to be in the Limelight. (Hey – it’s our anniversary month – probably appropriate to let you know more about the people here. I’ll do the Elves, too.) If you have any questions you want Web Guy to ponder, just email them to me. (Like this picture of our family? It’s a couple of years old. Apparently we need to have some more family photo shots taken, if this was the newest one I had…)
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Loopies #1: What did you do before you started The Loopy Ewe?
Sheri: I went to college to be an elementary teacher (with a remedial reading minor) and planned to teach my whole life. I taught for three years at the Middle School Level (reading) and then WH and I had our two kids and I stayed home to be with them. During that time, I started a home-based business as a Creative Memories scrapbooking consultant and did that for almost 15 years. It was more fun than going back to teaching! I was sure I’d be doing that my whole life, but then Loopy came along. I retired from the scrapbooking business about a year ago, to be able to put 100% of my time into The Loopy Ewe.

Loopies #2: Do you have a background in business?
Sheri: Not any official business courses. But I got into the leadership program with my Creative Memories business and have always been one who reads and researches a lot. I learned a lot from that process.

Loopies #3: How did you decide to do something like The Loopy Ewe?
Sheri: I thought it would be nice to have “a little something” going on as a second business, and started researching what that might be. Knitting Daughter and I were having fun knitting and since I had already worked with people who had a passion for scrapbooking, I thought that knitters would probably be just as nice. In my research into starting with an online shop, it talked about the need to have a “niche” of some kind. Since KD and I were into knitting socks, sock yarns seemed like a good idea. We put about 4 months of research into it, then took 3 months to fully set it up, then opened it on August 1st, 2006.

Loopies #4: Where did the name come from?
Sheri: It actually wasn’t our first choice! (And now I can’t imagine it being anything BUT The Loopy Ewe.) We just started playing around with different words that had to do with knitting/yarn/etc and settled on this one. It has gone through some interesting pronunciations when talking to non-knitting-companies by phone. (“Ee-we?” “Ewww?” “You?”) We’ve learned to just spell it out for them.

Loopies #5: Did you ever think that it would outgrow your basement?
Sheri: Clearly I underestimated that a little, given that I thought the corner of our basement where we first set up was going to be just “perfect” for this business. (Clearly, I had no idea what would happen to my brain whenever I came across a new yarn or accessory that I just had to bring into the shop.) I enjoyed having it at home, but by the time it had outgrown our basement, it was nice to have it OUT of our house and turn that back into just a place for our family!

Loopies #6: What’s your favorite part of the job, and your least favorite part of the job?
Sheri: Favorite part – there are lots of them! I love coming in to Loopy Central to work. It’s a bright, happy, colorful place that feels warm and welcoming and happy. I love being here. I’ve met such wonderful people (that’s all of you!) and that’s a huge benefit. It has also been so fun that our whole family is extremely involved in the business. I’m glad to have them to bounce ideas off of, and they always have great advice and insight because they know so much about everything going on here. Challenging parts: the amount of time it all takes. I was used to working hard from my experience in growing my scrapbooking business, but the amount of hours it takes to run Loopy is sometimes daunting, even with great help! And I’d say “never enough knitting and spinning time” but I know that goes for ALL of us!

Loopies #7: Where do you get all of your ideas?
Sheri: Lots of prayer, lots of keeping my eyes open in other areas and fields to see what I might tweak and do here at Loopy, and lots of good old-fashioned brainstorming.

Loopies #8: How do you pick your indie dyers?
Sheri: Oh, there are so many things that go into those decisions. Of course great quality yarn and dyeing are at the top of the list. I buy a lot of samples. Plus, I read a lot of blogs and feedback to see if it sounds like someone who is serious about their business and seems like they’d be fun to work with. I look for dyers who aren’t in a lot of other places and who can keep up with the quantities that we need here. And a few other things as well. We’re so happy with the amazing indie dyers and artisans who have allowed us to have their products here.

Loopies #9: Where do you see The Loopy Ewe five years from now
Sheri: Still going strong! I have had to re-adjust my long-term plan quite a few times now, so I won’t even begin to speculate. But I have learned a lot and I expect we’ll continue to make changes and grow. Keeping a personal touch to the business is one of our main missions, so that does temper all of our “growth” decisions. We won’t lose that aspect of it. (Or maybe Loopy and WH and I will be in a cabin in the mountains by then. Who knows?)

Loopies #10: Where did “FPS” come from? (For Pete’s Sake)
Sheri: Well one time during the beginning days of Loopy, I left a note for Susan-the-wonder-assistant about something we needed to do and it was one of those things that you never enjoy doing (I can’t even remember what it was. Probably filing or bookkeeping or some other such blah thing). And at the end of the note, I wrote FPS on it. She came to me later and said, “Ok, I’ve been thinking about this for 20 minutes and I have no idea what this means. What is FPS?” Now we all say FPS quite a bit around here. Along with “for the love of Herb” (FTLOH) and “for the love of Henry” (also FTLOH).

Now for the quick answers to several misc. questions!

Do you really read all of your blog comments? Yes – every single one. Most days it’s pretty easy to keep up with them. It’s just the monthly contest ones that take a bit longer. But we do read them all!
Do you have a favorite yarn? Yes
Do you ever drink anything but Starbucks coffee? Yes, I like Peet’s coffee an awful lot, too. And Caribou. And now I’m a bit stuck on Starbucks Vivannos. Yum.
Do you have any other hobbies? Well right now I’d rather be knitting or spinning, and that’s all I have time for! But I do love to read and needlepoint and scrapbook. I’ll get back to more of those things later.
How many skeins of sock yarn do you have in your stash? I have no idea. But I do keep adding to it.
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Sheri gladthisLimelightisdonenowandIhopeIansweredmostallofyourquestions!(Ileftoutafew…)

Wow. I can hardly believe that we are celebrating our Second Anniversary at The Loopy Ewe! Things have changed so much here since we first opened. We started with just a few lines (Regia, Claudia Hand Painted, Lorna’s Laces, Cherry Tree Hill, and Schaefer) and things have grown just a little bit since then! We started in this little side room in our basement (which I thought was a perfect little “sock yarn nook” and would serve us well) and now we’re waiting to expand our space again for the 3rd time. (I hear pounding. I think walls are coming down next door and the space is being made ready, but they haven’t punched through to us here yet, which means they’re not yet ready to make it all one big space.) We started with a few hundred skeins of yarn, built it up to 7977 at this time last year (remember that blog contest?) and …. well, let’s just say that we have thousands more than that now. (ahem. Someone keeps ordering more.) We started with just two customers – my mom, and my good friend Janice, and now we have lots of you and you all have become very dear to us. (You make it possible for there to BE a Loopy Ewe!) Thank you for all of your support and encouragement over these past two years. Y’all are so much fun and we feel lucky to have you. We’re looking forward to many more years with you.

In honor of our Second Anniversary, we put up the Anniversary Sock Kit last night (edited: now sold out…), and we’re having a blog contest today! We have set aside plenty of prizes (including several skeins of Wollmeise that I saved just for this) and we’d love for you to enter. All you have to do is leave a comment on today’s blog and you’ll automatically be entered. (Any comment will do: “Happy Anniversary”, “have a good weekend”, “enter me into the contest”, “I need a latte”, etc. ) We’ll leave it up to you. We’ll announce the winners next Friday, so you have a week to read this and leave your comment. We also put up a new Photo Gallery – one called “Loopy Central”. (We started calling it Loopy Central way back when it was still in our house. It just means the heart of all things Loopy – it’s where everything happens!) The gallery contains photos taken around here, to give you a picture of where your orders come from. We will continue to add to this photo gallery as we get the new space set up, and I’ll add photos of all of the Elves, too. We hope that it makes you feel a part of things here at The Loopy Ewe. (And remember, you’re always welcome to come visit in person. We’d love to see you.)

Sheri friendscomingfortheweekend.mustcleanthehouse.
wouldratherbeknittingthancleaning.Wouldn’tyou?