Normally, I love rainy Mondays. (Well, rainy ANYdays, but especially rainy Mondays.) Today, the kids are driving back up to school and I’m not so happy that it’s a rainy day while they’ll be driving.  The good news is that I still get them home for a few more hours, and I’m making the most of that time by baking some cookies to send back with them and hanging out for a few more hours. Luckily, the Elves are here at Loopy packing up all of those weekend orders for you, even though I’m playing hooky.

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter! It was beautiful here on Saturday and Sunday and we had a nice weekend. Here’s a photo of our colored eggs. The bad news? After I set these out to take a photo, I forgot to put them back in the fridge and so they sat out all night. 18 eggs down the drain. FPS.  I think I have too many things on my brain these days.

We have more great stuff going up in the shop this week. (I’ll come back in to Loopy and work on that later this afternoon and evening, after the cookies are baked and packed and the College Kids sent back northward.) Watch for: Malabrigo Lace and Worsted, Fleece Artist Trail Socks, more new colors of Cherry Tree Hill Semi-Solids, Opal Cotton, and a special shipment from Fleece Artist, “Sea Three”.  This base  is 70% silk and 30% seacell in a worsted weight. 245 yds./150 gr. Gorgeous!

I did knit this weekend. I thought I’d do my Challenge Socks, but all I did was the toe.  Then I made the mistake of starting in on a second project (“just to get it started”) and it kept me captivated. I’m making it out of this yarn and I’m practicing my chart-reading skills. Any guesses as to what I’m making? (Sharon and Claire – you can’t guess, because I already told you both!!) Hopefully I’ll make some progress on my Challenge Socks this week. That is, if I can set this other project down for an evening or two…..

Sheri hasanyoneelsestartedtheirChallengeSocksyet?

What a great weekend! Easter Celebrations happening, the weather is going to be beautiful, and we have a chance to have these two favorite kids of ours home for a few days.  They arrived last night and don’t have to go back until Monday. (It’s so nice that they can hang out all day on Easter, instead of traveling back to school in the afternoon. That makes for a very relaxing day.) We have plenty of things planned – dinners out, dinners in, movies, church, hanging out, visiting with friends, and … probably some catching up on sleep, as all college kids seem to need to do. (Or is it just that you sleep better when you’re home in your own bed?) I’m so glad to have them home.

Here’s a new recipe that I tried last week, after a walk through the fresh produce section, where the peppers were just too colorful to ignore. I just continued through the rest of the aisles and pulled a few more things that sounded good in here. This is great warm the night you make it, but it also tastes great cold the next day as a leftover.

Bells and Clucks

4 cups cooked chicken breast, cubed
1 box whole wheat pasta
2 cups snow peas
1 red bell pepper
1 orange bell pepper
1 yellow bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
1 tsp. basil
2 Tbl. olive oil
1 cup chicken broth
Italian Vinaigrette with Blue Cheese Crumbles Dressing
(I used Marzettis)

Prepare pasta according to directions on box, and drain. Cut peppers into thin strips and toss them into a large pan with olive oil. Add snow peas and basil. Stir fry for 2-3 minutes, then add in the chicken broth and steam for 3-5 minutes with the lid on. Don’t overcook!

Add everything together and toss with dressing as desired.

Easter Blessings to each one of you. I hope you have a great weekend!

Sheri whowillbeworkingonChallengeSocksthisweekend

Remember those cute Loopy Ewe soaps that we sent out in Sock Clubs last year, and then offered for you to purchase? We needed more, so I ordered another batch while we were out in Colorado. They’re here and looking as festive as ever. This time, I had them do the background in blue so that Loopy and his red socks would pop out more. Same great scent, though – a mixture of lemongrass, lavendar, patchouli and amber. Check them out. They’re made by my very favorite handmade soap shop in Breckenridge, CO. It’s hard to walk in there and not come out with a whole bunch of new soap. It’s the only kind of soap we use at our house now (and the bars are huge – they last forever.) Makes a fun addition to your swap packages and gifts for knitting friends!

I have picked out my Challenge Sock pattern and yarn. Here’s the yarn – Numma Numma’s new yarn base (The Usual) in “Make It a Double”. The color is even more gorgeous in person.  Actually, I walked around Loopy Central Monday night before heading home, trying to decide on a yarn/color to use for this challenge. The first one I picked out (“The House Red“) was completely sold out when I went to the computer to take my skein off. Darn! (I certainly know better. I know how fast you all scoop up yarns during a Sneak Up.) Over on the Loopy Groupie board, Mette mentioned the Summer Sliding socks by Jeannie Cartmel and I fell in love. (Turns out  I was already in love with this pattern, because Jeannie shared her photo of it in our Photo Galleries last year and I emailed her about it.) So I bought my pattern and caked up my yarn and I’m ready to start. It has been really fun to read about the different yarns and patterns that you all are contemplating for our Challenge.

Before we get too far into this Second Quarter Challenge, we need to get the winners of the First Quarter Challenge taken care of. We will randomly draw a winner from all entries, but we also give out a “Reader’s Choice” award, based on your votes.  So please go take a look at the entries and email us by next Wednesday (April 15th) to tell us your favorite one. (Email: susan AT theloopyewe DOT com) The winners will receive a Loopy Ewe Gift Certificate.

We still have a duck pair hanging out in our back yard. I was watching them settle in last night and I said to WH, “Should I do anything for them??” to which he replied, “No. You don’t need to mother them. They’re ducks.” So I guess they’re on their own.   But Zoe is keeping a close watch on them, just in case.

Sheri beautifuldayheretoday-howaboutwhereyouare?

Yesterday I noticed that the lilacs in our backyard were starting to come out. I love lilacs.  I’m not a big “purple” person, nor do I like candles/perfumes/soaps scented like flowery things, but I do love lilacs themselves. My grandparents planted lilac bushes all along their driveway when they first moved into their home years and years ago. (Here’s a post that I did about their house. It is in a very desirable town and was eventually torn down and the lot turned into a McMansion.  Sad to see that happening on their street. But a couple of my lilac bushes were transplanted from their house, which is fun!) I knew that the forecast for today was for freezing temperatures and snow, so I went out and cut some of the lilacs and put them in a vase of water. The nice thing about cutting lilac branches off each year to enjoy, is that the bushes just get fuller and fuller with each subsequent season. It did indeed snow big fat flakes today and I’m sure the rest of the lilacs are goners.  I’m glad to have gotten one vase full, anyway. (Click on the photo to enlarge it, and make sure your “scent button” is turned way up on your computer. Wait – you don’t have one of those “scent buttons”??  Bummer….)

It’s time for a new Quarterly Challenge! If you’re on Ravelry, I shared the new challenge on the Loopy Groupie board on Saturday. The challenge for you this quarter is to knit your own version of “Masterpiece” socks. Pick a pattern that challenges YOU. (Note – the degree of “challenge” will be different for everyone, since we’re all in different stages of technical skills our knitting. It should push you to do something harder than you have done before in your sock knitting.) The other qualifier is that you must use solid or semi-solid yarn from The Loopy Ewe. I want these wonderful patterns/stitches to really POP, since you’re going to go to all that work!  (Check out this blog post for a comparison of doing a pattern in a multi-colorway, versus doing it in a solid or semi-solid. While I love the first two socks, I have to say that a fancy pattern shows up better when there aren’t other colors competing with the design. It’s even more apparent in person – and when you click on the photo for a closeup.)

Here are some yarns that you might want to check out:
Araucania Semi-Solids, Cherry Tree Hill in Fingering Semi-Solids, DK Solids, Regular Solids, and Sockittome Solids, Dream in Color Smooshy and Starry, Dye Dreams Comfy or Dream, Indigo Moon. Louet, S.R. Kertzer, and The YoYo String and Fluff Sport and Fingering.

Of course there are several companies who do both multi-colorways as well as solids/semi-solids.  Look for the solids/semi-solids in:
Claudia Hand Painted, Colinette Jitterbug, Crystal Palace Panda Cotton, Lorna’s Laces, ShibuiKnits, and The Sanguine Gryphon.

And I know that many (many, many, many) of you already have a great solid/semi-solid in your stash that you bought from us and haven’t used yet. So do some stash-diving first and see if you can find something to use up!

Patterns? We have patterns! We have a large Cookie A order coming in about a week, but many of you have already ordered Sock Innovation from Cookie. (If you  haven’t, you need to. The information she shares is just as good as the patterns. And don’t forget that Wendy’s book, Socks From the Toe Up, comes out on the 14th – mine is already on pre-order at Amazon!) You’ll also find some challenging patterns in any of the lines we have, as well as free online patterns all over the place.  Pick your own “masterpiece”! (Hopefully, a 12-18 months from now when we do another “masterpiece” challenge, your skills will have progressed and it will take on a new meaning, once again.)

Note: We’ll vote on First Quarter Challenge/KAL winners later this week. Get your photos uploaded to the Photo Gallery and watch the blog for more details soon.

Tonight is opening night for the Cardinals here in St. Louis. We’ve been having lovely 60-70 degree weather on and off for a few weeks and today, it snows. Crazy weather. In other crazy news, here are the two ducks who have decided that our backyard is the place for breakfast. They come most every morning. Since the pond in our neighborhood is 4 blocks away, I can only assume that we have the best tasting birdseed between here and there. Or else we have the friendliest birds, who are ok with sharing their food. The cats just see it as two more “toys” to watch from the window.

Sheri sowhatpattern/yarnareyouthinkingyoumightdoforthechallenge?

Apparently, when one gets a little busy, one starts forgetting important things. This is my Necessary Post of Remembrances for the day. (If you don’t forget things, you might just go on to the next blog that you read and come back on Monday…)

Note(s) to self:

- Never ever ever shop at Sam’s Club at 10 am. It doesn’t matter how low you are on Loopy kisses, it’s simply not worth it. (Second note to self: if you’d plan ahead better, you would not find yourself in the position of needing to go at noon on a Friday.)

- You may not set aside a skein of Dianne’s Creatively Dyed Seacell Roving in Pelee, or Gale’s Alpaca Silk Roving in Grapevine, or Jennifer’s Luxury Merino/Silk/Angora Roving in Turkish Stone, before they go up on the website next week. You have not used your wheel in several months. There is no way to justify additional roving. (Second note to self: you could set aside a few hours to spin this weekend and then you’d be “totally back into spinning”. Then those amazing rovings would have every right to jump into your personal stash.)

- “Maybe it will go away” is never a sentence that should be used to describe tooth pain, thus allowing you to delay making a dental appointment. No matter how much you hate going to the dentist. (Second note to self: grow up already. It’s just a dentist.)

- There IS a limit to the amount of space available at Loopy Central. When you order boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff, and the only place to put them (temporarily) is in the Loopy kitchen, it means that people can’t get their lunches out of the refrigerator. That makes Elves testy. (Second note to self: And you can’t call it “an enforced diet”. Hungry Elves have no sense of humor.)

- It’s Spring. That means that those 20 pounds you were going to  lose “by next Spring”,  are still cheerfully hanging around. (Second note to self: it would require a change in diet and exercise. Weird how that works.)

On a positive note:

- Those people at Sam’s who cannot fathom why you would be pushing a cart full of 48.75 pounds of chocolate into the checkout lane? Smile and tell them you gave up healthy food for Lent. (Obviously the line “this is for the knitters” will not be believed and will look like a pathetic justification of too much chocolate consumption at your house.)

- Since you continue to knit and enjoy it, go ahead and buy some more yarn for your stash. And maybe you can sneak in one of those gorgeous braids of roving and no one will notice. (You really ought to spin this weekend, too.)

- He’s a nice dentist. (But still a dentist.)

- Hope springs eternal.

That’s it. My notes for the day. Do you have any “notes to self” you’d like to leave in the comments?

Sheri whoaddedthephotojustforfuneventhoughithasnothingtodowithmynotes
Althoughhedoesn’tlooklikehehasworriesaboutchocolate,dentists,
roving,dietsorSams…

While shopping in Colorado last week, I found some books that I needed. The first is Carol Sulcoski’s new book “Knitting Socks With Handpainted Yarns“. Have you seen it? She does such a wonderful job of explaining how to avoid pooling/striping when working with handpainted yarns, including how to determine what your skein is likely to do, depending on the lengths of the color runs. GREAT info for all of us who love handpainted yarns. There are also 21 sock patterns by designers like Nancy Bush, Charlene Schurch, Priscilla Gibson-Roberts, Chrissy Gardiner, and more. Definitely a great investment. I also bought a book called “Beautiful Sheep” by Kathryn Dun.  Beautiful photographs of more breeds of sheep than you ever knew about, plus all of the statistics about each breed. I think I need to frame some of the photos and hang them up here at Loopy Central.

In addition to shopping, there was also some knitting time. (14 hours driving out + 14 hours driving home + a few afternoons of being “snowed-in-so-we’re-watching-movies” = time to knit). I finished up 3 socks that were halfway done, and I’m happy with all three.  The first is Dye Dreams in their new Dream Sox line. This is one of my favorite semi-solids to work with. Not only do Mona and Stephanie do wonderful dye-work, but the base yarn is terrific. It’s a superwash merino/nylon blend, which makes for a very durable sock. (And you’ll love how soft and squishable this yarn is.)  I used a pattern from one of Charlene Schurch’s books and the pattern really pops out. I have tucked away several more colors of this yarn for future socks.

The next sock I finished is my first ever Jaywalker. (Note – that link takes you to a page with a Ravelry link, or a link to email Grumperina directly for a copy of her pattern.) I thought the self-striping pattern would look fun in this pattern, and I really like how it turned out. This is a brand new indie-line for us, which comes from Canada. We’ll have Sweet Paprika’s line up  next week in both this Vivace self-striping fingering weight, and in their lovely Minuet worsted weight (along with some great patterns from them as well.) Self-striping hand-dyed yarn is hard to find, as it’s such a time-consuming process. I’m so happy to have found these gals and their company. When we unpacked these boxes, I will admit to taking a few more colors of these, too. sigh.

The last sock I knit up is out of Cascade Fixation. I had not knit with Fixation before (I just had a lot of you clamoring for it) and I’m glad I took the time to knit with it. This is such a comfortable sock to wear, and I like all of the color choices. Fixation is 98.3% Cotton and 1.7% Nylon. It as some stretch to it and is billed as having “100 yds, 180 yds. stretched”. I wondered how far that would go. I have seen people talk about the Vog On pattern from Knitty.com, so I thought this would be a nice little anklet sock to use with Fixation. (And they give directions for both cuff down and toe up in that pattern.) I knit it toe up and substituted my preferred short-row heel. I could’ve stopped at anklet length, but then I wondered just how far up I could knit. Some of you have asked “How long are you supposed to make the cuff?”  Of course it’s totally a matter of preference, but I prefer to make my cuffs about as long as the foot, when folded in half. This little $5.50 skein totally measured up. I was able to do my size 11 sock with my  regular cuff length and even had a little yarn left over. (Note to self: flatten out that picot edge when washing and blocking it.)  If you’re looking for a warmer weather yarn to use for socks for the spring and summer, give the Cascade Fixation a try. At $11.00 for a pair of socks, it’s a great deal. (People also use this yarn for knitting up bikinis, but that is SO not on my list…..)

My Noro Sweater is coming along great. (I’m making the Chevron Cardigan out of Knitting Noro. Good basic designs, and I’ve already picked out a second one that I want to make from this same book.) I have the body finished and now just need to knit the two sleeves. I realize that “just two sleeves” is still a significant amount of knitting to be done (not to mention the sewing up of all of the pieces), but it makes me feel like I’m closer to the end if I can say “just two sleeves”.  It didn’t help that I had to do some frogging (once for pattern errata, and someday I’ll get used to looking that up FIRST), once for knitter-error, and once to change the colors that were coming out. FPS. I’ll bet I could’ve had one of those sleeves done, if not for the frogging.  I’ll keep working on it and will look forward to showing it to you soon.

For those of you who have been waiting for us to get The Knit Kit in, it arrived this morning! I put it up and even though we ordered several dozen, it may very well sell out quickly. If you click on the link and find that they’re gone, I’m happy to save one for you out of the next batch.  Just email us if you want to pre-order for the next time (we’ll have more in in about 2 weeks.) These are such great little kits.

So what have all of you been knitting for the past two weeks?  Fill me in!

Sheri whohasnewREDLoopysweatshirtstosharewithyounextweek