Our Loopy Ewe Solid Series line has been used in another published pattern and we wanted to give you a peek! This crocheted scarf looks like it would be fun to do in a lot of different colors. The designer, Kathy Merrick, used Iron, Butterscotch, Dove, Pesto, Mocha, Silver, Sage and Slate Blue for this one. This pattern appears in Interweave’s Crochet Winter 2012/2013, available online today and on newsstands December 18th. (Photo by Harper Point Photography, used with permission.) Wouldn’t this be fun in shades of one color (like blue), going from lighter to darker? Like Whisper Blue, Ice, Cornflower, Cerulean, Royal Blue, Slate Blue, Indigo, and Navy? Or browns? Or greens? How about a quick Christmas scarf with Strawberry, Cardinal, Spring Green, Kelly Green, Evergreen, Surf, Caribbean and Turquoise? (Or just pick a Loopy Cake set or two – those are fun colors that all go well together!) I like the multi-color idea for a scarf. It goes with everything that way.

Today’s recipe is a long-time family favorite and I hope you and your family and friends enjoy this one as much as we do.

Congo Bars

Mix together:

1 cup butter (room temperature)
2 cups flour
2 egg yolks
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. baking soda

Mix well and press into greased 9 x 13 pan. Sprinkle 1/2 bag of chocolate chips on top and lightly press into batter. You can also add a half-bag of butterscotch chips as well, but we like the chocolate chips in ours.

Beat 2 egg whites until stiff and then add 1 cup brown sugar. Beat until combined. Spread over chocolate chips.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes. Let cool and cut into bars.

Hasn’t it been nice to have one full week post-Thanksgiving before the month of December hits? Have you decorated for the holidays yet? (Or do you do that?) I think that’s on my list for the weekend.

Sheri betteraddthattomyhusband’sto-dolistthisweekend,too…

We headed cross-country back to St. Louis for Thanksgiving weekend last week. The 13 hour car drive across Colorado, Kansas and Missouri certainly brings lots of knitting time! Consequently, I was able to (finally) finish my Derecho. This is the second one I have done. I did the first one in the smaller size (see it here), and chose to do this one in the larger size. The small size stops before the last two long strips on the bottom left and right edge, so you can see how the size compares. There is a lot of knitting in the larger size. I made this one out of Shalimar Breathless in Sea Glass, Neptune and Buttermilk. You need a light, medium and dark color for this pattern. For this larger size, I used 1 1/2 skeins of the darkest color, 1 skein each of the other two. Despite being a bit tired of all that knitting by the end, I did make the border a bit larger. I did 10 rows (including pickup and bindoff) instead of the 3 that it called for. I like that the border is twice the width of the regular stripes.

I wanted to share some of the beautiful Derecho Shawls (by designer Laura Aylor) that inspired me to make the two that I made this summer and fall. Thanks to all of you who chose this design for one of your Camp Loopy projects this summer.

Martha’s Derecho made with Madelinetosh Sock in Wash, Forestry and Mineral:

MK’s Derecho made with Madelinetosh Sock in Antler, Iris and Tart:

Beth’s Derecho made with Swan’s Island Organic Fingering in Blue, Iron Oxide and Forest Floor:

Glenna’s Derecho made with Madelinetosh Merino Light in Dusk, Mare and Sequoia:

Malia’s Derecho made with the Loopy Ewe Solid Series in Black, Slate and Malachite:

Kristi’s Derecho made with the Loopy Ewe Solid Series in Navy, Lilac and Orchid:

Jump on in to the Derecho pattern. All you need is a light, a medium, and a dark (fingering weight, 400 yards or so of each color, unless you’re doing the large size and then you’ll need more of the dark color). Or try one of Laura’s other beautiful patterns – Faberge, All the Shades of Truth, Enamored, Oak Park, Serra, and more. I think the Oak Park scarf will be one of my next projects. It looks fun to knit up! Plus, I like projects that involve more than one color. Do you?

Sheri offtocontemplatecolorsintheaisles

It’s a grey, blustery day here in Fort Collins – perfect for sitting by the fire with hot chocolate and a good knitting project! I wish we had a fireplace in our shop. We do, however, have plenty of fun projects, just waiting for you to discover them. Just up, you’ll find:

Dragonfly Fiber Dragonsock – Kate’s 100% superwash merino fingering weight yarn in her beautiful signature colors. Lots of choices, including many new colorways. (Shown here in Rocky Top.)

Spud and Chloe Fine – a fingering weight that is 80% superwash merino and 20% silk. The little bit of silk adds a touch of shimmer and strength to your socks, shawls, gloves and scarves.

Spud and Chloe Sweater – a worsted weight that is 55% superwash merino wool and 45% organic cotton. Every time I knit with this, I’m reminded of how nice it is to work with (and how nice the project turns out). Right now, I’m working on a baby blanket with it. (Shown here in Grass.)

Spud and Chloe Outer – a bulky weight that is 65% superwash merino wool and 35% organic cotton. If you’re looking for a quick knit, try using this for hats, scarves, mittens and cowls for people on your gift list. (Shown here in Bubble.)

Blue Sky Alpaca Silk – a DK weight that is 50% alpaca and 50% silk (that’s 100% awesome). Try this with cowls, hats, mitts, and scarves.

Blue Sky Skinny – a DK weight in 100% organic cotton. People love this for baby items (clothes, blankets) and spring/summer sweaters and vests.

Blue Sky Metalico – a sport weight yarn that takes the softest baby alpaca and blends it 50/50 with the softest mulberry silk. The result? Wow. Keep it close to your neck/head/hands where you can enjoy it most. Plus, the little braided skein is too darned cute. (Shown here in Silver.)

Schoppel Wolle Zauberball Crazy Socks – these long color-changing stripes are fun to knit into socks, but also great for triangular shawls, hats and scarves.

Schoppel Wolle Zauberball Lace – a single-ply laceweight with the long color changes that Zauberball is known for. (Shown here in Tropical Fish.)

Atenti Overnight Bags and Carpet Bags – in several new fabrics. I use an Overnight Bag to corral all of my smaller project bags into one pretty place in my family room. It looks nice sitting out and keeps everything close by and handy.

Do you receive our monthly email newsletter? We sent one out this morning to let you all know that we have put all needles and crochet hooks on sale for 25% off today, in honor of Cyber Monday. We also added a post on our Facebook Page (have you liked us on Facebook so that you see our posts?) and on Ravelry in the Loopy Groupie group. The sale goes until midnight tonight, so be sure to stock up.

Sheri finishedmyDerecho,timetoshopfornewyarn!

I shared my last cowl/mitt project with you a couple of weeks ago. I knit it with Prism Merino 12 and Plume, which are both soft and wonderful! I wanted to knit up a quick one-skein Merino 12 cowl on its own, too, and this is what I came up with. It should only take you a couple of hours and one skein of Merino 12.

Merino 12 Quick Cowl

Cast on 72 stitches on a size 11 (8.0 mm) 16″ circle needle.

Row 1: [K2, P2] all the way around.
Row 2: [K2, P2] all the way around.
Row 3: [K2, P2] all the way around.
Row 4: [K through the back loop of the second stitch on the left needle. Leave that stitch on the left needle and knit through the front of the first stitch on the left needle. Then pop both stitches off the left needle. P2].Continue this pattern all the way around.

Knit until you have just enough yarn to do a bind off row and you’re done.

K = Knit, P = Purl

Here’s a new recipe that Knitting Daughter has tried out on us a couple of times now, with rave reviews. Great for breakfast, or your mid-morning coffee break.

Gourmet Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins

2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 Tbl. instant coffee
1 Tbl. hot water
1 1/3 cups mashed bananas (2-3 bananas)
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup chocolate chips

Sift together flour, soda, salt and baking powder.

Dissolve coffee in the hot water and add to the mashed bananas. Beat together the butter, egg, sugar and banana mixture. Add in the flour mixture.

Fold in the chocolate chips.

Bake at 335 degrees for 30 minutes. Makes 18 muffins.

Have a great weekend!

Sheri makingprettygoodprogressontheprojectslistfromWednesday’sblog

Ok, not really. I’ve only made these two for Christmas gifts. But maybe I’ll have time to make more before the 25th of December rolls around. I’m still enjoying the process of weaving. Here’s one I made in Wollmeise Wasseratz.

And another one in Wollmeise Zenzi.

It’s really a fun way to use up multi-colored sock yarn that you might not feel like knitting into socks. Did I mention that I went through my stash last week? I have a lot of sock yarn that is going to be something other than socks. I used to buy so many single skeins.

Since tomorrow is our Thanksgiving Holiday, I have my knitting projects all planned out for this week and weekend. I’m finishing my second Derecho (finally, FPS. Tell me again why I decided to knit this a second time? And to make this second one the never-ending-big-size?), hoping to finish my Cabled Rib Wrap (although it’s so luscious to knit that I don’t mind it taking a long time), and hoping to start a Nuvem (with Wollmeise Lace, or Lorna’s Laces Helen’s Lace, which would be gorgeous). All of those things are pretty mindless knits, which makes them perfect for working on when you have family and friends around for the holiday weekend. What is your favorite mindless knit for times such as these?

Sheri maybeIoughttohaveonechallengingprojectready,justincase

We have plenty of beautiful things that just went up on the website for you tonight. Time to spoil yourself with something new, right? We added in:

Wooden Sock Blockers – they’re back! Since leaving St. Louis (where my husband had the machine to make these), we’ve had to find a new person to make them and a new person to finish them. We still have them cut in St. Louis, and now Elf Michael is doing the finish work. (Luckily, he is also a woodworker, in addition to being a top-notch Loopy Elf!) We’ll be able to continue to put stock up regularly now that we have this all worked out. I know that some of you have been waiting a long time for them to come back.

Fibernymph Dye Works - Lisa sent us her famous self-striping line this time, and each one is more beautiful than the next. Since striping yarns are so labor-intensive, we can only get them in rotation with her other awesome lines, but we will carry them as often as we can get them. Self-striping yarns look particularly great in socks, cowls, hats, mittens and gloves. (Shown here in Home for Christmas.)

Twentyseven27 Soap – the Christmas scents are back, as well as my all time favorite (Almond Poppyseed). Look for: Cinnamon Sugar, Chocolate Peppermint, Jasmine Rose, Cherry Almond, and Bergamont Tea Tree. It would be cute to make mittens or gloves for someone, and then tuck in this hand-made soap as well.

Woolen Mill Street – Christina has sent a gorgeous batch of her 100% Superwash fingering weight. You’ll see some tribute colors to some of your favorite TV shows and movies in there, which is double fun! These colors would be beautiful for socks, but also in shawls (multi-color shawls like Lintilla, Hitchiker, and 22.5 degrees), two color shawls where you pick a multi for one part and a solid for another (like Pamuya) and how about the cute Hitchhands pattern for mittens and Hitchhat for your head? (Shown here in Jack O’Neill).

Soak – We have new Travel Kits that contain 8 mini packets of Soak. Each packet will do 2 washes, so it’s a great way to take along soap for your handknits. (Or include one packet with each handknit you gift to someone). We also have the new Soak Handmaid – a 3 oz. bottle of their luxurious hand creme, perfect for popping in your purse or knitting bag.

Offhand Designs – A new batch of beautifully made knitting bags. We have them in the Scottie, the Marcella, and the Zhivago. It has been awhile since we’ve had this line and we had such fun unpacking the boxes and oohing and aahing over the pretty fabrics and great styles. (Shown here in the Marcella style with the Saratoga fabric).

ChiaoGoo – a re-stock on all of our ChiaoGoo needles.

Ruffled Neckwrap Pattern – for those of you who emailed about where to get this cute cowl after I blogged and linked to it last week, we now have the pattern available. This is a great pattern for a quick and easy worsted weight cowl (out of Malabrigo Worsted, Spud and Chloe Sweater, Madelinetosh Pashmina Worsted, Dream in Color Classy, etc.)

A big HAPPY THANKSGIVING to those of you in the U.S.! We hope you have a wonderful week with familiy and friends. When we think about what we’re thankful for, all of YOU are always at the top of our list (inside the U.S and out!). We never forget that we’re dependent on you for this business, and we are always happy to have you here.

We do have special Holiday Hours this week - the brick and mortar shop (and phones) will be closed Wednesday and Thursday for our Thanksgiving holiday. We’ll be open in-store and packing up orders on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. I also have two new woven scarves to share with you on Wednesday’s blog, and a great muffin recipe for you on Friday’s blog.

Sheri wholikesturkeysandwichesmorethanhotturkeyonThanksgiving.
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