“We’ve got the spirit, yes we do, we’ve got the spirit, how ’bout you?” Remember that cheer from your school days? (Do they still do that one?)  It went back and forth from one team to the other team and eventually degenerated into both sides chanting “we’ve got more, we’ve got more”. Well, we have Team Spirit around here, too.  We have teamed up with Lorna’s Laces to bring you an exclusive line of Team Spirit colorways, for all of your favorite teams – professional teams, little league teams, high school teams, college teams, etc. So many of you have loved our Loopy Ewe red/white colorway (and we keep having to order more), that it got the wheels turning.  We’ll start with team colors for the two baseball teams that reach the World Series (and Lorna’s Laces promises to have it to us within days of finding out which two teams will go), and then we’ll add in many other team colors.  Here’s your job – leave your suggestions for YOUR favorite team colors in the blog comments.  We’ll take suggestions until next Friday, October 10th, and then we’ll randomly draw a winner from all of the comments for a Loopy Ewe gift certificate. Then, we’ll go through and get the most popular two-color combinations into production and have them here asap. Just think of all the people who would love socks/scarves/hats out of their favorite team colors!

Speaking of socks, we have more yarn barreling down on us by the case-full. Yay!  Here’s a sock that I knit up using Sereknity (I knit it this summer while on vacation, but I forgot to share it with you when we received our first order of Sereknity and put it up. It knit up very quickly, making me think that’d I’d do the matching sock right away. But … I haven’t yet. Seemed like I had plenty of time to get it done before sock-wearing weather came back to St. Louis this fall.) I love the yarn base and also thought it was fun the way the stripes swirled up around the ankle.  The colorway is Cowgirl and we do still have a few skeins of that in stock.  There are actually quite a few colors of Heather’s yarn that I love. (It really IS a problem to be surrounded by all of this beautiful yarn, day in and day out, but I know that I will garner no sympathy from any of you.)

Next week’s Sneak Up – fun stuff. We’ll have: Noni Patterns (felted and children’s clothes), Fleece Artist Casbah, Beanie Baggies (including a new red/white one), Creatively Dyed Roving and Luxury Sock, Sanguine Gryphon Silk/Merino Roving, Gales Art Black BFL Roving, Lawre’s Laine bags (new fabrics), Lorna’s Laces Supersock and Roving in Amy’s Vintage Office (the Amy-blend yarn base will be here shortly), Sanguine Gryphon Eidos, Chewy Spaghetti, Scarlet Fleece, and another exclusive colorway from Dream in Color – “Don’t Be Blue” in the Classy weight. (We said we’d keep that colorway in Smooshy exclusive to the Don’t Be Blue Kit people, which we will, but we thought you might like it in Classy for scarves and sweaters. It’s gorgeous!) And coming the week after that (so far) – roving from Zen String and more Harry Potter yarn from Opal.  They’re shipping it to us today.

For your chocolate fix this weekend:

“5 Minutes to Chocolate”

4 Tbl. flour
4 Tbl. sugar
2 Tbl. baking cocoa
1 egg
3 Tbl. milk
3 Tbl. oil
3 Tbl. chocolate chips
dash of vanilla

Add dry ingredients to your favorite large coffee mug and mix well.  Add in egg and mix thoroughly, then add in milk and oil and mix well.  Add chocolate chips and vanilla.

Bake at 3 minutes in the microwave. (The cake may rise up above your mug, but it will back down as it cools.  The blue Loopy Ewe mug – from our Second Anniversary Kit – will allow just enough room on top to add a scoop of ice cream.  You know, if you were so inclined.)

Don’t forget to leave us a comment with your favorite team color combinations. We’re looking forward to getting started on that for you!

Sheri it’sgoingtogobackupto80degreesherethisweekend.What’supwiththat?

I was given permission to take over the blog today so that I could tell you all about my Summer Vacation. This is the second year in a row that The Loopy People have sent me out on the road for some R&R over the summer. You might think it’s all “yarn and chocolate” here all the time, but let me tell you, there is a lot of work involved in keeping Loopy Central running. I was glad to scoot out of here for a few months so that I could hang out with all of you.  And ohhhhh, the places I went!  You can see my whole scrapbook of pictures here with over 250 photos in there, but I picked out a few to share with you. (I know they’re all different sizes – but you know that you can click on any of them to see me the photo better, right?)

I went to so many different countries and I liked most of them almost as much as the fun places that I went in the US. I had never see the Mona Lisa before, so that was fun. I like that she doesn’t have any eyebrows. I don’t either. Now Minnie Mouse – she does have eyebrows and it looks good on her. I’m not sure about the blue eye shadow.  But she was nice to me, so I think it’s ok that she wears blue eyeshadow. This Borg scared me, but I was determined to see if he had eyebrows, so I posed for the picture.  Funny thing is, I’m not sure if he had eyebrows or not.  I had to look away.

It was also fun to meet some famous people, although sometimes that intimidates me a bit. I went to Knitting Camp and met Meg Swanson. She was so nice and I’ll bet her mom, Elizabeth Zimmerman was nice, too.  She likes wool, so consequently, I think she liked me. I also met Beth Brown Reinsel. She designs beautiful sweaters, but she didn’t offer to knit me one. I think it was just an oversight. I liked meeting Lucy Neatby, too, because she does fun things with her hair and clothes. (That’s something that a sheep who wears red socks can appreciate.)

There were a few charitable things that I participated in. Some were set up by other people and some, I decided on my own. I walked with Melissa and her mom in the Relay for Life. That was cool and such a great cause. I went to Afghanistan to cheer people up.  It was a rather intimidating task because they are just so amazing there. I hope I made them smile.  Then I tried to push over that Leaning Tower of Pisa.  Why is that a charitable event? Because it’s half-tipped and it makes everyone nervous just to look at it. I thought I’d be doing them a favor by finishing it off and being done with it.  However …. it didn’t work. It’s still there, leaning and stressing people out and giving them a crick in their neck.

I visited some of my relatives in other parts. The Yorkshire Sheep pretended that they didn’t know me, but we share a great great great grandfather, so they were just being snooty. They’re awfully pretty, though. I come from a good line. The Black Sheep at Chirk Castle in Wales were actually friendlier to me. I think because they know that I have a black sheep brother (Brother Bart) and they can relate. And then I visited a few multi-colored friends in Wisconsin, because we have beautiful sheep here in the US, too.

Some people made sure that I tried some unique things while we were out and about. I liked driving the submarine, but I almost ran into another big ship so they made me give up the wheel and go back to being just a passenger again. My friend Janine let me touch the top of the Taylor Tower.  Now, mind you, both College Guy and College Girl attend school there, but neither of them have let me touch the Tower before. I must discuss this with them. And Carrie made me my own kilt and hat so that I’d be in character when I met author Diana Gabaldon. I like her Outlander books a lot.

There were so many more adventures – too numerous to tell. All in all, I visited a lot of cool places in the US with many of your families, had great meals out, did some beach bumming, knit a few rows,  and also hit: Fiji, Belgium, Turkey, Zambia, Monaco, Italy, France, Rome, Sicily, Tokyo, Venice, London, Spain, Africa, Germany, Cambridge, Mexico, Istanbul, Korea, Canada, Australia, Delphi, Croatia, Barcelona, Cannes,  the Swedish Polar Circle and the Finnish Polar Circle.  Whew.  I’m going to have to rest up a bit before I venture out again next summer.  Fortunately, I have my own sleeping bag and tent for the night, my own hammock for hanging out in the daytime, and a boatload of chocolate to get me through the winter.  Life is good.

Love, Loopy

P.S. Thanks for voting on my adventures!  Here are the winners who will be getting gift certificates from The Loopy Ewe:

Best Far Away Place: Cappodocia, Turkey
Most Interesting Person: Sherlock Holmes
Most Unusual Place: The Mexico Sisters in the Convent
Favorite Photo: Loopy Camping