I couldn’t help it. I needed cupcakes. Or cake and frosting. Or heck, just chocolate brownies and frosting. Reading through every single comment on Wednesday’s blog post made me hungry hungry hungry for it. I’d say the most common “favorite” was carrot or spice cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. (Mmmm, cream cheese frosting.) But many of you like plain ‘ol flavors, too. Nothing wrong with that! My favorite cupcake at The Cupcakery in St. Louis is the Peanut Butter one. (Chocolate cake, peanut butter frosting.) After reading all of your comments, I did a Google search for peanut butter frosting, used my favorite brownie mix, and whipped these up. Then I sent a batch of them to work with Paul and brought the rest of them in to Loopy Central this morning so that I wouldn’t eat them. (Of course I had one two last night. That took care of the craving.) Did anyone else find themselves baking or buying cupcakes this week?

Peanut Butter Frosting (from allrecipes.com, with modifications based on some of the reviews. This frosting is way too good.)

1/2 cup butter, softened to room temp
1 heaping cup of creamy peanut butter
2-4 Tbl. milk
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp. vanilla

Mix butter and peanut butter until smooth. Add powedered sugar gradually, beating the whole time. Add vanilla and then the milk as needed (1 Tbl. at a time.) When well mixed, turn up the speed and whip for 3 minutes, until light and fluffy.

Thank you for all of your votes on Loopy’s Summer Vacation! Here are the winners:

Most creative: Crab Loopy from Linda

Farthest place that he traveled: Great Wall of China from Toria

Photo that made you wish you were there: Loopy Goes Canoeing from Liz

Each of the winners will receive a Loopy Ewe Gift Certificate. We also drew one name randomly from all entries to win a Gift Certificate and that one went to: Jennifer from CA for Loopy Goes Back in Tyme. Thank you to everyone for participating!

Some of you have asked when we’d have the stuffed Loopy sheep back again. The company we get them from discontinued them this summer. (With no warning. FPS.) However, we pleaded with them (and showed them the travels that Loopy has taken) and they agreed that we needed to have them again. Or rather, they agreed that if we purchased a whole BUNCH of them, they’d have them special-made for us. So they are being made as we speak, and we’ll get the batch in again in late Winter/early Spring, just in time for another round of summer travels and such. We miss seeing all of the Loopy guys hanging around here. It will be fun to have them back!

Found another pattern I want to make. It looks like a quick knit. It’s this, by Loopy Groupie Jess. (I can only find the pattern on Ravelry. Sorry about that.) And I’ll make it out of this yarn. I love that yarn. But first I need to finish the second Multnomah, so I’ll be spending time on that this weekend. What will you be spending time on?

Sheri weadded13moresetsofshelveshereatLoopyCentralthisweek.
Lotsofyarnonorder.

We need some color here in St. Louis – how about you? It has been raining for days and will continue to do so until Saturday. Now you know that I like rainy, cloudy days, but this is getting ridiculous. So I thought I’d share a fall photo that my hubby took last weekend. Click on this indian corn photo to make it big, and check out the kernals on the ear third from the left. Amazing! I’ve never seen a colorburst like that before.

Good news – because I’m within a day’s delivery from Dream in Color, we’ve been able to re-stock all of the Knitosophy line already. (And our wayward box of the BOLD colorway arrived. I took a quick photo of it here – beautiful blues – but I’ll make sure that the “official” photo gets taken later this week, too. I did add them to the site. I didn’t want you to have to wait on ordering it, as several of you have asked about it.) This new dye method turns out gorgeous colorways. If you were in our sock club in 2008, Veronica experimented with this method on the Spicy Kisses colorway that she did for us that summer. I’m having trouble deciding which colorway to knit up first. I like Butterfly and Superhero because of the color mixes. But Blossom is so tangy that you can almost taste it. And I love the thought behind Strength and Laugh. (Come to think of it, those would be good colorways to use for socks or shawls or scarves for people who need a little of that in their lives.) Hard to decide. I know you all had the same problem, because so many of you bought several of them! It will be fun to see your projects as you finish them up.

While I’ve been knitting at night, I’ve been watching the Food Network. Big mistake. Now I find myself wanting cake when I go to bed. I used to like white cake with chocolate frosting, but then I tried Kirstin’s Chai buttercream frosting on a spice cupcake and that immediately moved to my favorite spot. Although now that I’ve seen this “Decadent Chocolate” photo, I think I might need to try one of those for comparison. (Photo used with permission.) Unfortunately As You Wish Bakery doesn’t ship, but I will let you know if that ever changes. I’m definitely ordering platters of her cake balls for next year’s Spring Fling. I have an “in” with her mom, Janice, who comes down to help me with the Fling every year. I’m sure she’ll deliver. This month’s blog contest question – what is your favorite flavor of cake and frosting? I’ve saved some skeins full of color for prizes and we’ll draw for them next week, so leave your comment below to be entered!

Sheri thinkingImighthavetodriveuptoIowatohaveoneofthosecupcakessoon

…. this. The dad-gum road construction that has been going on along the road that runs right next to our building, since sometime this summer. Tired of the jackhammers and the cones and the workers and the person that felt it necessary to drop this scooper on chunks of pavement to break them up, resulting in more building shaking. This photo was taken from inside my office, so you can see how close we are to the mess fun.

…. talk of the H1N1 flu. And whether or not to get the vaccines, and whether or not they’re safe and have been tested enough, and whether or not they’re going to run out, and whether or not you’re gonna git it. (I’m getting the vaccines. Talked to my doc. Enough said.)

…. waiting for UPS/Fed Ex/USPS to deliver yarn orders. We have so much on order that is due in “any minute”. When are they going to arrive? NOW is a good time. Let’s deliver it now.

…. wearing reading glasses for everything. After a whole life of 20/20 vision, it stinks when your eyes get older and turn against you, making things blurry up close. On the flip side, I can see anything going on at the Montessori school across the parking lot in perfect detail. Let me know if you need to know anything about their playground or the cute kids. I have it covered.

…. more yarn than I have time to knit. But it’s a curse that I’m willing to live with (and add to) indefinitely. Come to think of it, I’m not really tired of that at all. Not one tiny bit.

Speaking of which, we just added some beauties to the website! You’ll find Dream in Color’s new Knitosophy line, as well as the special Ocean Currents Limited Edition Smooshy colorway that they sent to us, Fiberphile’s amazing colors, Hand Maiden Swiss Super Sea Sock, Tempted Glam Girl (the one with the silver, and new colors), and patterns from Monica Knits and ShibuiKnits. Good stuff. Hop over and see.  :-)

Happy Thanksgiving to our Canadian Friends!

Sheri anythingyou’retiredoftoday?

Here’s the Multnomah shawl that I finished this week, knit with Hand Maiden Mini Maiden. (I love that yarn. Soft and beautiful, a slight sheen from the silk, and everything turns out looking great.) I weighed the leftover yarn and estimate that I used about 2/3′s of the skein (about 360 yards). The original pattern was knit with 412 yds so I’m not sure how I had so much left over. I started another one this week and plan to make it a little wider across the shoulders. Someone on Ravelry mentioned that they increased the stitch count to 265 before bordering. I like it when other people figure those things out and pass them on. In fact, there are notes on increasing the size if you look up the pattern on Ravelry. Here’s the lesson I learned about blocking – pin everything, including the lines down the center. I’ll reblock this one before gifting.

Elf Susan brought in two recent projects that turned out so cute and I wanted to show them to you. The first is a baby hat out of Malabrigo Seleccion Privada. (We told her to bring the baby WITH the hat, but she did not.) Love how the Malabrigo striped up. She also made a one-skein scarf out of the new Araucania Panguipulli for her college nephew, with a simple seed stitch pattern. After seeing this, I went and pulled some Panguipulli for myself. The variety of colors in the multi-ply makes everything you knit look interesting. And while I’m showing you photos, here is a quick scarf that I knit up using the new Lana Grossa Cento. I used 2 skeins (just K,P down and back, 18 stitches), but I’d probably use 3 the next time to make it a little longer. I did it in the blue/purple colorway for College Girl, who likes purple a lot. Such a quick knit on size 10 needles – about 2 hours start to finish. The colors blend from lights to darks to lights. (Yes, I did wash the colors out with my flash.)

Paul and I went antiqueing on our way home from Indiana last weekend. (4 stops, plus one unfortunate stop at a Flea Market that we won’t discuss. Suffice it to say that we won’t need to stop there again….) In my quest for weird book titles, I found this one: “Around the World on Two Skeins of Wollmeise $60″. It was only $2, so I bought this one. Still thinking about “Instantaneous Personal Magnetism”, though. This book and a wooden clamp for WH were the two purchases of the day. We spent a whopping $8.

Monday is a holiday here in the U.S., so no mail and no Loopy Elves working that day. We’ll ship all weekend orders out on Tuesday. However, I will blog on Monday, and we’ll do the update late afternoon or evening, because we have things that you will want. (What, you ask? We have Tempted Glam Girl, our first order from indie dyer Georgia of Fiberphile, more Hand Maiden Swiss Super Sea Sock, an exclusive limited edition color in Dream in Color Smooshy (Ocean Currents), their new Knitosophy line, and 3 new fingerless mitt patterns from Monica Knits. Watch for it all on Monday!

Sheri lovingthecoolmorningsandeveningsthatFallbrings

It’s time for a new challenge!  We do two different things around here, and we take turns from quarter to quarter. KAL’s (Knit A Longs) are where I specify a certain pattern or a certain yarn. This year we did a Clapotis KAL the first quarter and a Girasole KAL the 3rd quarter. During the 2nd quarter, we did a Challenge where I encouraged you to make a pair of socks that were a masterpiece to you. You picked the pattern and the yarn. Now it’s time for a Challenge again!  This time, the Challenge is to knit a shawl, where you pick the pattern and you pick the yarn. (In order to be eligible for prizes in the Challenge, the yarn needs to be a line that we sell here at Loopy.) If you’re new to shawl knitting, you might pick a pattern with more garter stitching and use a fingering weight or heavier yarn. If you’re a shawl/lace pro, you might pick something that teaches you a new pattern, construction or technique. All projects must started 10/1 or later, and must be completed by 1/1/10 and a photo submitted to our photo gallery by 1/7. (This gives you time to wash and block.) There is a thread on the Loopy Groupie board entitled “Shawls”, if you want to talk about what you’re doing, or have questions that you need answered from your pattern. I finished my first Multnomah (now blocking, photo on Friday) and am starting a second one today. Yeah, the Multnomah was kind of addictive.

Another fun thing that we do here is to send Loopy on vacation with all of you in the summertime. He first went on the road in 2007 and had an awesome time. So much so, that he wanted to go again in 2008. (This was the year that many of you took your stuffed Loopy’s, in addition to the postcards.) We sent him out again this past summer to see what trouble he could stir up, and you all rose to the challenge. For example, Loopy:

- went to China:

- and the Taj Mahal:

- tried to read the signs near the Dead Sea in Israel:

- topped a wedding cake:

- took a plane ride with some friends:

- got revenge on that crab from two years ago:

- went canoeing:

- and even hung out at the office:

Now it’s your turn to vote on Loopy’s summer!  Please take a look at all of the photos in his photo gallery - there are lots more – and send us an email (support @ theloopyewe . com), telling us:

Which photo was most creative?

What was the best “farthest place” that he traveled?

Which photo made you wish you were there?

We’ll award prizes next week!

Sheri whatwouldLoopybedoingTODAYifhewerehangingoutwithyou?
He’dbestartinganewshawlifhewerewithme. 

We had a fun time at Parent’s Weekend this past weekend! Guess what? Indiana has lower temperatures and prettier trees than Missouri right now. I know our time will come. The schedule was full and we did all of our favorite things:

- Saw a balloon launch. (This was for College Girl’s Chemistry class. They had to design an experiement to be sent up with a weather balloon, 20 miles into Near Space. They launched two balloons. One went sailing far far away. The other got caught in a tree. I guess that was the end of that experiment….)

- Had lunch at our favorite breakfast/lunch/coffee place – Paynes. This is housed in a tiny nondescript building just off Highway 69 in Gas City, but they have the most wonderful food, drinks, and frozen custard. Family owned and operated. This is their “French Omelette”, which I keep meaning to try on my own at home. I had an Apricot Brie Panini, which was just as good as it sounds. And of course a latte, because how can you pass this up?

- Went to the football game and watched the mascot run around. (Oh, and we watched the game, too, although it didn’t turn out the way we wanted it to.)

- Traveled up to Fort Wayne for a little shopping and dinner at the FlatTop Grill. Unfortunately my photo of the grill didn’t turn out. But it was sure interesting to see them grilling up piles and piles of orders at once.

- Stopped by the petting zoo to feed the deer and the llamas and the goats and the chicks. They always seem starved. I hope they are fed regularly. (I guess all animals always act like they’re starved, don’t they?)

- And did I mention that Web Guy surprised us by flying up from FL for the weekend?? Turns out all of his favorite friends were coming back for the weekend, so he came, too. (But I’m sure the more important part was that WE were going to be there. That’s my story.) Either way, I got my hugs in and we got some time with him, so I came home with a full mom-heart. I love spending time with our two favorite kids.

In knitting news – we just did the Monday Update. Come see! You’ll find Malabrigo Worsted, Silky, Lace and Sock (more on order, but this is the first half), Fleece Artist Superwash BFL (new for us), 3 new lines of Lana Grossa (one is a worsted – Cento, one is a sock that reminds me of Noro Kureyon, but softer, and another sock line that is self-patterning), and a Namaste re-stock.

Later this week:

Check back on Wednesday to hear about the Fourth Quarter Challenge, and to vote on Loopy’s Summer Vacation photos.

Check back on Friday to see my Multnomah Shawl, which will be washed and blocked by then. I’m starting a second one immediately in Colinette Jitterbug, because I fell in love with the color Sahara.

Do you think you’re more enticed to knit something because of the yarn, the color, or the pattern? Do you find a yarn line and think, “I need to find a color and pattern and make something with this”?  Or do you find a color and think, “This is a great color. What pattern can I use with it?” Or do you see a pattern and think, “Must make that. What yarn?”  I know it’s probably a combination of all three for most of us, but you probably have one that pulls you a little more than the others. I think for me, I’m drawn by colors most of all. That might be part of the reason I have a stash problem collection.

Sheri buildingisshakingagaintoday,moreroadworkoutside