We watched The Office last night, and right after that, “SNL Weekend Update-Thursday” came on. It started out with some humorous skits about the political scene in the U.S. right now (which, actually, were a lot more fun to watch than the real thing.) But the thing that had us cracking up was during the “newscast” segment, where they were talking about the economy.  Don’t you just sometimes want to yell at someone and tell them to get this figured out and FIXED so that we can be done with the doom and gloom and trying times? I think that’s why this skit made me laugh so hard – it’s exactly what I want to say to someone.  (Note – this shows the whole newscast.  The “Fix It” part is from 2:25 – 3:45 in there.) I may have to watch it once a day for some levity….

I finished sock #1 of my Lorna’s Laces Loopy Ewe colorway. I love it! I think mini-stripes are fun. I knit this on size 1′s with 60 stitches on the needles.  Plain sock on the foot, K3/P1 on the ribbing. When I knit mini-striping yarn, I start by counting the number of stitches it takes me to knit through the first color on whatever size needle I’m using for that project.  In this case, there were about 65-68 stitches in each color section as I was knitting it on my size #1′s.  By making my sock 60 stitches around (which I did because that’s the size I needed the sock to be), there are a few stitches of color that overlap to the next row. When you look at this sock, you can see that these slight overlaps of color from one row to the next kind of break the pattern up a little and cause some “movement” in the sock. I like that. I also could’ve done a bit of a pattern in the sock (instead of plain rib), because that extra inch of color would’ve given me some leeway and still kept each row basically a different color.  If I was knitting a scarf with this (or the Sport weight), I’d do the same thing – count the number of stitches in one color, for the needle size I wanted to use. It helps you figure out how many stitches you might want to use on each row, how wide your color stripes are going to be, what different patterns you might experiment with, etc. (Note – I tried Judy’s Magic Cast-on for the toe since I wanted the stripes to look good.  Here’s a video of Cat Bordhi demonstrating it. I’m sold on this cool cast-on!)

Thank you for all of your great suggestions on colorways for our new “Team Spirit” line! We are going through and tallying all of the votes and will come up with the most frequently requested combinations to start with.  (And then we’ll continue to build from there.) The Team Spirit colorways will be like the Loopy Ewe colorway in the way it knits up into mini-stripes. It will be fun to see our favorite teams (& Hogwarts houses) knit up into socks and scarves and hats, as you all go to town! Since there were over 500 comments, we used the random number generator to pick TWO winners for a Loopy Ewe Gift Certificate. Congratulations to Jenny in Wisconsin and Jan in VA!  We will keep you posted on the posting of the colorways. (By the way – we keep getting emails about whether or not we’ll have more of The Loopy Ewe colorway.  Definitely!  It’s not a limited edition – we will keep it in stock as often as they can dye it up for us.  We’ve also put in an order for solid-color skeins of the Loopy Red, because many of you have asked for that so that you can do heels and toes.)

Here’s a wonderful cookie recipe for you today. I hope your family loves them as much as mine does!

Emily’s Sugar Cookie Crispers

1 lb. butter (4 sticks), softened
4 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking soda
4 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp. vanilla

Optional add-ins – pick one or two! Nestle’s Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips, Ghiradelli’s Milk Chocolate Chips, macadamia nuts, chopped pecans, dried cranberries, dried cherries, etc. Each version is just as good as the next!

Whip the butter and the sugar together.  Beat in the eggs.  Mix the dry ingredients together and then add into creamed mixture, slowly.  Mix well. Add vanilla, then add in any of your “optional add-ins”.

Bake at 375 degrees for 13-15 minutes.  Cool on cookie sheet for several minutes before removing to baking rack to finish cooling.

We have Monday off because it’s a No-Mail-Holiday here in the U.S. (Columbus Day). I’ve decided that I’m going to try to knit more of my Christmas gifts this year (until someone FIXES the economy, FPS), so it will be a Power Knitting Weekend for me. Is anyone else finding that they’re more inclined to make gifts this year? What kinds of things will you make? I’m dragging out my patterns and books and making a Master List for the Fall. This will be fun!

Sheri mustalsogogroceryshoppingthisweekend.That’snotsofun.