I’m so happy to have this new bag line at The Loopy Ewe. Mostly because I have been holding on to the samples and not using them so that I’d have them to refer to in sizing, until our own batch arrived. They arrived last week and I immediately started filling up my personal stash of Baggu Bags. What I love about them:

- the quality
- the lightweight material (doesn’t add additional weight to your projects)
- the fun colors
- the multiple sizes
- the fact that I can add zippered pouches to the open project bags (or use the zipper pouches for project bags themselves)

I took this picture to give you an idea of how the sizes compare. The teal blue bag in the bottom right corner with stuff in it, contains a pattern (5 sheets of cardstock, but no page protector) and 3 caked up skeins of worsted weight Spud and Chloe Sweater. Click on the photo to make it bigger and see the sizing labels. The Small and Medium Sets come with 3 different sized bags in a set. The Large Set comes with 2 same-sized bags. The XL Bag is sold individually. We have the bag measurements on the Loopy website. I also popped a skein of Universal’s Cotton Supreme (worsted weight) in the photo for scale.

In this photo, I kept the Large Zipper bag and skein of Cotton Supreme in there and added in the Baby Baggu (purple bag) and the Regular Baggu (lime bag) so that you could see sizing. Click on the photo to make it bigger and see the sizing labels. And the fold lines? They come all folded up and compact in a little pouch, making these bags easy to tuck in purses and luggage for times when you will need a little extra carry-all. (That is, if you’re not using them for your knitting.) That Baby Baggu is also great for small sock and scarf projects, as well as lunches. The Regular Baggu is great for large sized sweater and blanket projects, as well as groceries or fiber festival shopping.

In addition to the Baggu Bags in tonight’s Update, you’ll also find new Atenti bags and Loopy Ewe Messenger bags (the extras we had ordered with the Loopy Lite kits last fall).  See? We’ve been bagging it all week. Plus, we’ve re-stocked Spud and Chloe and Blue Sky, and added their new winter colors and patterns to the lines as well. You’ll also find HiyaHiya Bamboo Circs and accessories, a re-stock of Wendy Knits patterns and Born to Knit patterns, and Schacht Matchless Double Treadle Spinning Wheels. Lastly, we put up some remaining Loopy mugs that we’ve been selling in person here at Loopy Central. Now that we have the Loopy Hadley Pottery shipping without incident, we’re being brave and giving these mugs a go, too.

We added the Club Loopy spots to the website today, which many of you have already discovered. You can find them here, while spots last. Your price includes three kits, which will be shipped to you mid-February, mid-March, and mid-April.  A sure way to chase away the winter doldrums!

Sheri NoMailMondaymeanswewereofftoday
butwe’llbebackintomorrow

This is my favorite cabinet. I found this at an antique store when we expanded our Loopy space a couple of years ago, and it quickly found a home here. It has housed many different yarns. I had it full of Wollmeise once, but of course that never stays in there very long. This used to be in someone’s general store and it’s huge. Right now, we have moved the yarn out and put bags in there instead. (I love bags. You know that about me! We’ll continue to offer you fun bags. More are always in the works. This week the Baggu Bags came in, which is what you see on the left side. Those will be up in Monday’s Update.)

As I was taking this photo, I realized that this would be a perfect piece of furniture for a knitting room (or a knitting corner, or a knitting wall.) You could put stash in many of the cubbies, but you could also put different projects in some of the cubbies. I think if I filled the cubbies with my works in progress, I might stop casting on. There’s nothing like being confronted with tangible evidence that things have gotten out of hand. (Maybe I’d be better off putting the WIP’s in the drawers. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do.) At the moment, I don’t have any room in my house for a cabinet this big. But maybe someday I’ll re-do things and find a wall for it. When I do, I’m totally taking it back from Loopy for my Knitting Central Zone in my house.

This month’s contest question: Do you have a Knitting Central Zone in your house? Or do you have supplies and projects spread all over the place? (You know, sometimes when you spread it around, it doesn’t look like you have so much of it. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.) Leave us a comment and we’ll draw random winners next week. We’ll be sending the winners a $35 Loopy Ewe Gift Certificate so that you can find something fun to add to your treasure of stash. (Or a new bag to contain your stash. Did you know I like bags?)

While you’re thinking about knitting areas, you might check out our photo gallery of knitting storage ideas. Feel free to submit some photos of your yarn area, if you’d like. We love getting a peek at how others organize their projects and yarn.

Sheri happythattheweekendishere,
gladthisweekisover,rover

Thanks for weighing in with your Club Loopy opinions. We knew you’d have some! I posted this over on the Loopy Groupie board on Ravelry, but for those of you not over there, I wanted to share our thought process on this. We always listen to you, but you do know that your opinions differ, right? So what we do is take: Opinion A + Opinion B + What’s best for the long-term success of The Loopy Ewe = how we roll. Here are just some of the opinions offered about sock club over the past couple of years:

• Love it! Don’t change a thing.
• Tired of socks and have too much sock yarn. Please offer other choices.
• Wish you’d have more semi-solids in the club.
• Wish you’d have more exclusive multi-colors. I can get every color of semi-solid from many different places – those aren’t exclusive.
• I’m so upset that we didn’t get any bags this year and Loopy Lite got a cool bag.
• I have way too many bags. No more bags.
• One can never have enough bags – bring them on!
• Can’t we prepay and get a discount on the cost?
• I like paying month by month.
• Love the extras.
• Don’t need the extras.
• Can you do themed kits with lots of extras?
• Why don’t you open up more spots so more people can get in?
• Why can’t you do a smaller club so that you can use more indie dyers?
• Love being surprised by the kit. Don’t tell us anything about it.
• I don’t like surprises. I want to know what’s in there before I buy it.
• Can you include a real sheep in the next kit? (kidding. Just wondered if you were still reading…)

Sock clubs have changed so much since we started ours back in 2007. There were just a couple of them back when we started. For that first one, I hoped that I could fill 50 spots, and I was so unsure about the whole thing that I told people to just email me if they would like a spot. (Didn’t work so well. We had more than double that amount within the first two hours. Live and learn.) Now almost everyone offers some kind of a club (lots of options for all of you), so this might be the year to finish ours out and try something new. We’ll see how it goes. It’s an inordinate amount of work and planning, but we know that you like them. (Well, opinions vary on that, too. You love them, hate them, are intrigued by them, want to discuss them, can’t decide, etc ….. But you DO have an opinion about them.) It keeps things interesting!

We’ll continue to evaluate and listen and figure out the way that makes the most sense for us, while keeping you as happy as possible. We have lots in store for 2011, so if Club Loopy doesn’t trip your trigger, then hopefully something else will.

Enough about Club Loopy. What’s your favorite flower? We have a seven below windchill here today and I’m thinking about flowers. I like Gerber Daisies. I wonder if I can find a vase full of them at this time of year? It’d be a nice thing to have in my office, while the wind howls outside!

Sheri Ilovesnowandcold,butsevenbelowmightbealittletoomuchofagoodthing

It’s almost time for “sock club” signups for 2011, but we’ve made a few changes, including the name. Since not every shipment will include a sock yarn or sock pattern, we’ve decided to simply call it “Club Loopy” this year. Do you want to know more? (Lots of info in this post! Note: Signups will be available this week for auto-renewing and next week for new spots. See below.)

1. We will do these in two different rounds of 3 months each. The first round will be the Club Loopy for Spring with shipments in February/March/April.  (3 kits total) The second round is planned for shipments in September/October/November and will be our Club Loopy for Fall.

2. We will be offering this two ways.

1. You can buy a full spot in the Club (via a one time payment that covers all three months and reserves all three kits for you) and we’ll ship each kit out to you automatically by mid-month in February, March, and April. Or:

2. You can wait until the kits come out each month and purchase an individual kit for that month only.

3. We’re all about bags and quotes in this first round. Each month, you’ll be receiving

1. an exclusively dyed skein of yarn
2. two patterns written for the yarn
3. an exclusive Baggu Bag with a knitting quote on it.

Each of the quotes will be one that we have decorating the walls here at Loopy. Since this is new, we’re giving you a preview of the first bag. Each month you will get a different color and size of bag with a different knitting quote on it. We didn’t order extra quote bags to sell at a later date. These are exclusive to Club Loopy. We will, however, be offering non-imprinted Baggu Bags and accessories soon.  The bags are made of a nylon parachute-like material. (Like the GoKnit bags, if you have one of those.) They come in a little pouch and are easy to pop into your knitting bag or purse, with your project. Also, easy to loop the straps over your arm and knit on the go. And the bigger they get, the more yarn they can carry! Great for shopping.

4. Since the bag sizes and yarns are all different, the price for each kit will vary slightly from month to month. If you are using the pre-pay option, we’ve figured this all up into one price. The 3 month pre-pay cost is less than if you were to purchase each kit separately.

5. For this round, two months will bring you yarn in multi-colors and one month will bring you a beautiful semi-solid. Two will be fingering weights, one will be a DK weight. Our designers (Debbie O’Neill, Wendy Johnson, Jeannie Cartmel, and Kirsten Kapur) have been hard at work on the patterns, and the dye companies (no hints on those!) have been dyeing up a storm.

6. If you were in the sock club for the first time in 2010, watch your emails this week for a link to auto-renew and pay for the February/March/April round, if you choose. For the Fall Club Loopy, we won’t be doing auto-renews, but we hope you’ll come back and get a spot when they go up on the website.

7. We’ll sell most of the Club Loopy spots via the 3-month pre-pay option, but as I mentioned above, we will set aside a batch for individual sales each month as well.

8. The 3-month spots will go up on the website next week. As soon as you put it into your cart and pay for it, the spot is yours. We’ll ship your first kit out in a couple of weeks. No lotteries, no Loopy Lite options. We figure a 3 month round is sort of like Loopy Lite, which I know a lot of you enjoyed! To purchase the kits individually month to month, watch for them to go up mid-month, after the pre-paid kits have shipped.

9. The cost will be:
- 3 month option: $127 (plus $18 postage US & Canada, $28 postage for other countries)
- Individually: February $39 plus postage, March $46 plus postage, April $49 plus postage. All kits ship separately and can’t be added to other orders.

I’ll be sure to post on our Facebook, Twitter, and Ravelry pages when the spots are up for sale on the website. If you’re not linked up with one of those groups, come link up! (That means clicking “like” on our Facebook page, or “following” us on our Twitter page, or “joining the group” on the Loopy Groupies Ravelry page.) You’ll find the Club Loopy spots under What’s New, and also in the “Kits” section, when they go up for sale next week.

We’ll also be offering a Mother’s Day Kit in April, a Loopy Anniversary Kit in August, and possibly another special kit later in the Fall. We’ll keep you posted on those as well.

Sheri hopingtheweathermanwasrighttoday:SNOW!

Many of you have discovered our new Loopy Webcam already. Isn’t it fun? We talked about where to aim it, and I thought it’d be fun to aim it at the order packing island, because there is activity going on there the whole day. (The Elves vetoed that idea.) We settled on the front entry, just because that’s where it says our name, and that’s where new boxes come in and get unpacked from day to day.

Why a webcam? We had to install security cameras due to shoplifting. (Note to shoplifter: bring back my grandma’s vintage knitting needles that you took from the red cabinet in the front room. And the yarn that you put in your purse. Seriously.) As long as we were doing cameras for a not-so-fun reason, why not do one camera for a positive reason? If you come to shop in person and want to have your webcam photo saved in the Webcam Gallery, just let us know and we’ll make sure your photo gets saved. Are you on Twitter? Tweet and let your peeps know that you’re shopping at Loopy and will wave to them on camera. Wondering what it looks like when all of the Spring Fling shoppers are here? Now you can peek in and take a look! Want a clue as to what will be up in next week’s Update? Watch and see if you can catch it.

The photo changes once a minute, during our normal working hours (9 am – 4 pm, Central time.) Sometimes it will look the same, because nothing changed right there during that minute. Other times you’ll see someone pulling an order, sorting inventory, matching skeins, stocking shelves, or shopping. Today, you might have see me updating yarn signs for our shop. Yesterday you may have seen our Cascade Rep Michael, when he stopped by for a visit. Or Tammy, or Kathy, or Joy. Once in awhile we’ll do a contest, and let’s start that today. I put a pile of yarn (same colorway) on the island. The first person in the comments to identify the yarn, will win a skein. (It’ll be a little bit of a challenge, since you can’t zoom in and get up close to it. Are you up for it? Somehow I think someone will figure it out. You all are smart like that.) If you can’t identify it, you can leave a comment telling me what yarn you WISH was sitting there – ha! If no one guesses correctly, we’ll randomly draw a winner from all comments. If someone guesses quickly, then maybe I’ll put a second pile up there! Edit: Jenna guessed the first one correctly – Three Irish Girls Adorn. The second batch was Fiber Optic and Seanna Lea guessed it right away. Third batch was Mountain Colors Bearfoot, won by Elizabeth. Our fourth and final batch was correctly identified by LisaPB – a skein of Dream in Color Everlasting. Thanks for playing along today. We’ll do it again sometime! And for those of you in the comments, wondering where the yarn pile is – we did this during the day on Friday.

Remember my Cable Challenge problem? Turns out it’s all user-error. (Um, that would mean it’s my own fault. The user.) I know that’s no surprise to anyone. The lovely Judy (Hollygrove designer) contacted me and could not have been sweeter in helping me figure out my snafu.  Apparently I started the first chart row in error. It was supposed to be a WS and I made it into a RS, which puts the whole chart off. One of these days I will have this chart thing completely under my belt, I’m just sure of it. Cables ARE easy – I promise. And one day I will learn to read directions more thoroughly, instead of breezing through them and figuring, “I got it.” Despite my snafu, the pattern is turning out just right, after my self-imposed adaptations. I usually like to make things as complicated as possible.

Finally, one more big round of appreciation for all of you who participated in our RAK’s contests on the blog throughout December. It has become one of my favorite parts of the season, over the past few years! The final winner for the last week’s contest is Carrie in ND, who wins a tub of our Soak Heel creme, two skeins of The Loopy Ewe Solid Series in her choice of color, and a pattern of her choice. Congratulations, Carrie!

Sheri whowillwavetoyouoncamera
everytimeIwalkbyittoday!

When people say “the third time’s a charm!” in an irritatingly cheerful voice, don’t believe them. At least it didn’t work that way for me. I re-started my Hollygrove Scarf four times, and it looks like I have finally gotten it. But FPS. Really? I think this is the most times I’ve re-started something.

The first time - I mis-counted something in one of the early cable rows, and couldn’t tink or frog it back. (The Cascade Eco Alpaca is a little fuzzy, but it’s definitely tink-able if need be. Just not by me, that first time.)

The second time – I messed up the “cable without a needle” thing. I’m still not sure how. But what I did decide is that I like the version where you move the stitches first and then plow into the knitting/purling (versus the method I linked to last week that has you moving, then knitting, then moving again. I think that linked-to method is probably faster in the long run, but my way is easier, and still lets you whizz along without a cable needle.) I also took some colored pencils and colored in the different cable symbols on my chart last week. It made a huge difference in the speed of my knitting in those rows.

The third time – I had actually done two pattern repeats and couldn’t figure out why it didn’t look just right. (Note – this photo is the corrected version. Don’t get your glasses out, trying to figure out where I messed up on this one.) The first repeat didn’t look right, either, but in my state of eternal optimism, I figured that it “would all work out”. Then I figured it out.  The cable symbols said to “move 2 stitches to the front, knit two, then knit two from the cable needle” so that’s what I did. I’m literal like that. And I don’t knit charts often enough to be completely comfortable with the whole “this symbol means this if you’re knitting right to left, but it means the exact opposite if you’re knitting left to right, which you will be doing on every other row” thing. In this case, the pattern was happy to remind me that the knit and purl symbols were opposite, depending on which row you were on. But they forgot to tell me that the cables would also be done the opposite way on the back rows. So instead of knitting the stitches when they said to knit them, I needed to be purling the cable stitches, when working the left-to-right wrong side of the chart. And the repeat section only has the big cables on the wrong side of the chart, so I’m thinking a gentle reminder in the key would’ve been helpful. You can imagine how lovely (and glaringly obvious) that mistake was in the knitted fabric, as I went along. Still not sure why I thought it would all work out, but eventually I realized that it would not, and frogged it again.

The fourth time – things are going swimmingly. I think I’ve got it. I love working on it, now that it’s going the way it’s supposed to. Carrying on.

How is your Cable Challenge project coming along?

Sheri whoisstillabigcablingfan,despitethedo-overs