I could’ve sworn Baby Hazel’s mom said she made this hat out of 220.

This is the Stella Pixie Hat, free here. It’s an adorable shape and Baby Hazel really looked precious in it when she was in the shop with her mom. I made it with Spud and Chloe Sweater, a yarn that I just love knitting with. I also did an i-cord tie (threaded through the folded over neckband) instead of the button closure loop. This might be my new go-to baby gift to knit. It was quick and easy to knit up and I think it looks adorable. (But in fingering weight next time.)

We have the February Dream Club color up on the website, and it’s a beauty. This semi-solid red/pink was dyed up just for the club and is dyed on the Classy base, so it comes with 250 yards in the skein. The pattern that goes with it is by Beth Kling, and is called Hearts on a String. A great way to keep your neck warm (and stylin’). We will email you the pattern within 48 hours of your Dream Club order shipping, so that you can jump right in and get started on it. I can also see this cowl done up in a navy blue or a charcoal grey to keep the whole thing a little more subtle. And I can picture this happy red February colorway in a scarf like ScWINoNa or Christmas Lace,  or fingerless mitts like the Cozy Thermal Mitts or Ragtop . Lots of ways to use both this yarn and pattern. Remember, we will have more skeins available in the middle of the week next week, too. We always put more up when the people who have pre-ordered make their final decisions.

We have winners!  Congratulations to our two in-store Grand Opening  winners – Catherine from Arvada and Debbie from Boulder.  And Congratulations to our two blog Grand Opening winners – Arlin from Indonesia and Windy from Texas. We will get these prizes in the mail to you all today. Thank you again to everyone who stopped in on our Grand Opening day and who left comments on our January Blog Contest post. I will be referring to those comments full of pattern ideas for a long time.

Sheri can’tdecidewhattostartnext.Shawlorsweater?Maybeboth.

This has to be the quickest knit scarf I’ve done.

So do you have a pattern that you have enjoyed enough to knit more than a time or two? What is it? Leave your answer in the blog comments and you’ll be entered in this month’s blog contest! We are drawing for two goodie bags (shown here). Each prize contains our Small Loopy Project Tote, a Loopy Travel Mug, a Loopy Heel Soak (hiding in the back of the bag), a Little Loopy, and a skein of multi-colored Wollmeise (each prize bag has a different skein – we’ll send you a pretty one).

Our official Colorado Loopy shop grand opening is this Saturday, January 28th,  from 10 am – 4:30 pm. We will have an in-store drawing for two of these bags as well as giving away two of them here on the blog. We’ll announce the winners in next week’s blog, and will also contact you if you win.

I’m looking forward to hearing which patterns have captured your attention enough to make multiple times. I have several on my own favorites list! (Like these new Cloisonee Mittens out of Cascade 220. And wouldn’t you know, we just re-stocked all of our 220 colors? With 248 different color choices, I might get a little carried away with color combination options…)

Sheri whohassevenprojectsonthe”startrightnow”list
butwhat’safewmore?

Did you get a copy of their Holiday Gifts issue this fall? I want to knit up McHenry by Susan B. Anderson (a cute stuffed puppy pattern, as well as a puppy hat for kids option). Susan comes up with the greatest patterns for kids. I also like the Novel Sleeve by Kathy Zimmerman (perfect for your Kindle or Nook). But the pattern that I just had to start in on this week are the Ashbury Mitts by Simona Merchant-Dest, shown on the cover. It’s making me try my first go at bobbles. (They’re so easy. Sometimes I wonder why I think things are intimidating – cables, colorwork, bobbles – all were just fine, once I actually sat down and tried them.)

Another recent publication from Interweave was Jane Austen Knits. I’ve marked the Fiori Pullover sweater by Mary Annarella, the Lambton Top by Theressa Silver, and the Frederick & Anne scarf by Kirsti Johanson, as possible future projects. I was so anxious to see this issue that I bought it myself, even though I knew I’d be getting a copy in the mail for advertising in it. Since I now have 2 copies, I’m giving one away to a lucky blog reader today. Would you like it? Just leave a comment below and we’ll announce the winner on Monday’s blog. (I wish I had five copies to give away!) Do you have a favorite pattern that you’ve made from a knitting magazine?

In keeping with Gratitude Week here on the blog, we have winners from Wednesday’s blog. We are sending a beautiful skein of indie-dyed yarn to these five knitters: Eloise from OR, Suellen from PA, Beth from MD, Cynthia from NC, and Melissa from MI.

I took photos of the Colorado Loopy Shop Space-in-progress last week. I’ll share them on Monday’s blog. It’s sloooowly coming together ….

Sheri leftoverturkeysandwichesareontoday’smenu

…. so many things! But I’ll give you the ones that (mostly) relate to The Loopy Ewe:

1. I’m thankful for all of YOU. We would have no business without you. You keep us on our toes, and you make stocking the shop fun. You’re at the top of our list and we’re always happy to have you here.

2. The indie dyers who trust us to represent and showcase their beautiful lines. Such talent in that group, and we’re grateful to share their art with you.

3.  The “big” yarn companies who are so wonderful to work with. (Big is in quotes because even though they are big, most all of them work hard to be personal and friendly in all of their dealings.)

4.  Coffee and chocolate. There might be a little stress going on with this cross-country December move of ours, and coffee and chocolate are helping. (I know that I should say knitting is helping, too, but my knitting time is going to be limited for a bit….). Coffee and chocolate are staples in our Loopy kitchen.

5.  The St. Louis Loopy Elves. They’re forever a part of the Loopy family (meaning their impact here will last forever, but it also means that they get a Forever Loopy Employee Discount, and a forever free place to stay when they want to visit Colorado in the future. Also? A forever job if they realize that they’re tired of the St. Louis humidity next summer and want to move to the mountains. I keep hoping.).

6.  The moving company that will be taking all of Loopy’s earthly possessions and driving it cross-country in a week or so. If you see a bright yellow Exodus moving van in Missouri/Kansas/Colorado the first weekend in December, you might want to ambush it and plunder the yarn. (On second thought, don’t plunder. Let’s make sure it arrives safe and sound in one piece.)

7.  Your patience. I know you don’t like No-Update Mondays. I don’t either. But we are stockpiling a bunch of great yarn for our first post-move December update here in Colorado, on the 12th!

8.  Stash enhancing. Ok – beyond the coffee and chocolate stress busters, I’m also picking yarn to add to my stash. I might not be able to knit for a bit, but I can still dream about future projects in wonderful colors. And I do have cases and cases of yarn sitting at my house, waiting for your next Monday Update. What’s a knitter to do?

9.  The Colorado Loopy Elves. They know they have a lot to live up to (because they know you all love the St. Louis Elves) but they are ready for the challenge. I promise you, they are bringing their own kind of awesome to The Loopy Ewe. We wouldn’t have it any other way.

10. A long holiday weekend with my family. Nothing is as refreshing as spending time with the people I love the most. I hope you’re doing the same!

In honor of my Top Ten Gratitude List, we’re giving away 5 prizes. I’ve picked out 5 skeins from 5 different indie dyers and we’ll pick five winners. Will you be one? Leave a comment and let us know what you’re thankful for, even if you’re not celebrating an official Thanksgiving holiday this week! Prize winners will be announced on Friday’s blog (where we’ll have another Gratitude Week giveaway).

We have five winners of a copy of the Skinner Hat from Monday’s blog, and I’ve emailed the winners. Congratulations to Analiese in NY, Anna in WA, Lael in WI, Sarah in AL and Lisa in VA!

Sheri wishingthoseintheU.S.aHappyThanksgiving!

(P.S. So that the Loopy Elves can enjoy a long weekend with their own families, we won’t be shipping orders today, Thursday and Friday. You can still place orders 24/7, and we’ll ship them out on Monday and Tuesday of next week.)

Now please help us choose your favorite project from Camp Loopy’s Project Three Gallery. You can send your response to us at support@theloopyewe.com and we’ll report back soon.

We also have winners of last month’s blog contest, which I snuck in at the last minute. We’re sending a skein of Wollmeise to Diane in MA, Patricia in WA, and Jen in CA. Congratulations to all of you!

Today’s recipe is one I tried earlier in the fall and it was a hit. I found it on Pinterest and it comes from Mel’s Kitchen Cafe. I hope you and your family enjoy it.

Baked Penne Chicken, Broccoli and Sun-Dried Tomatoes

1 bunch broccoli (about 1.5 lbs.), cut into small pieces
12 oz. penne pasta
2 Tbl. olive oil
1 md. onion, minced
6 md. garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp. dried thyme
1/4 c. flour
2 c. chicken broth (I used low sodium)
1 c. heavy cream
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1.5 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed and cut into small pieces
3 oz. smoked mozzarella, shredded (I used regular – couldn’t find smoked)
8 oz. jar oil-packed sune-dried tomatoes, drained and chopped

Topping:
3/4 c. bread crumbs mixed with 2 Tbl. melted butter

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Bring water to boil in large pot, add 1 Tbl. salt and the broccoli. Cook the broccoli until it is bright green – 2-4 minutes. Remove from water and add pasta to the boiling water. Cook until al dente (about a minute less than you might normally cook it). Drain and toss with 1 Tbl. olive oil.

Drain water from pot and add 1 Tbl. oil. Put on med. heat until you see the oil shimmer. Add the onion and cook about 5 minutes. Stir in the garlic and thyme, mixing well. Slowly whisk in the broth and cream, stirring as you bring it to a simmer. Whisk in flour, salt and pepper. Add the chicken and cook through, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and stir in tomatoes and mozzarella.

Add the pasta and broccoli to the sauce, and stir to combine. Transfer to a greased 9 x 13 pan and sprinkle with the topping. Bake at 400 degrees until it’s bubbling and the crumbs are lightly brown (about 15 minutes). Enjoy!

Sheri thinkingaboutcastingonahatthisweekend.
Gotafavoritehatpattern?

I was sad to hear that I missed the first big snowfall in Fort Collins, because I’ve been working from St. Louis this week.

On the other hand, St. Louis is a baseball town, and it has been fun to be here during the World Series games. You just can’t beat last night’s game (if you managed to stay up for all 11 innings and watch it). The two teams seem well matched in this series and they both have provided some great baseball moments over the past week. I won’t even be too sad if Texas wins tonight. Great team, great players, and they lost last year in the World Series. Two years in a row doesn’t seem right. I’m still going to root for the Cards tonight, but either way, I’m sure it will be another good game.

Today I’m sharing a recipe from my friend Audrey’s mother-in-law. We’ve been making these bars for about 20 years, and they are always a hit. (And always a good way to use up ripe bananas.) I hope you and your family enjoy them as much as we do.

Mrs. Wilson’s Banana Cake Bars

1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter
3 eggs
1 cup mashed ripe bananas (3-4)
1 cup nuts (optional)
1/4 cup sour milk*
2 tsp. vinegar
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
4 tsp. water
1 tsp. vanilla
Frosting Glaze (see below)

*You can use regular milk and make it sour. Measure slightly less than 1/4 cup of milk, and add a bit of vinegar to bring it up to the 1/4 c. mark. Let it sit for 5 minutes to sour before adding it to the batter. You can also use buttermilk if you have that.

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, bananas, nuts and milk. Then add all dry ingredients, plus water and vanilla. Pour into a greased 9 x 13 pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes.

Let cool and then frost.

Frosting: 6 Tbl. butter, 4 3/4 cups powdered sugar, 1/4 cup milk, 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla. Blend well.

For this month’s contest - leave a comment and tell me your favorite sports team. It doesn’t have to be a baseball team and it doesn’t have to be a professional team – it might even be your little one’s little league team. We’ll do a drawing next week for Wollmeise. I saved a few skeins for this month’s contest!

Sheri notadmittingtohowmuchyarnI’mtakingbacktoCOwithmetonight

I used to think that it would get easier to send your kids off to college, each year that they went away.

On our way home from Indiana yesterday, we stopped at a place we’ve known about for a long time, but never visited. You don’t travel that stretch of road without seeing the “foot high pie” billboards for Blue Springs Cafe in Highland, IL. And now the billboards read “as seen on The Food Network”, but I have no idea when that aired. They make 20-40 pies per day (way more at Thanksgiving and the waiter said “of course she’s cranky as can be back there in the kitchen during the Thanksgiving pie making” and I’m assuming he was talking about grandma, the baker.) They truly are a sight to behold, so if you’re ever in the area, pop by and have a slice. They have lots of flavors to choose from.

We have Fifth Anniversary Contest Winners to announce! Thank you to everyone who participated in our blog contest, and thank you for your anniversary wishes, comments and emails. It’s fun to celebrate with you! I’ve emailed all of the winners. Each one of these people won a $50 gift certificate to The Loopy Ewe. Congratulations to Deborah from MI, Sue from IL, Loraine from MI, Caitie from VA and Traci from NV.

I’m back in St. Louis working in the shop for a few days. I promised myself I would work all day long before walking around the shop and filling up a basket of yarn to take back to Colorado. I’ve missed being surrounded by yarn every day! If you haven’t been here to shop in person, you just need to pop in. (Road trip, anyone?) I overheard a shopper today tell her friend, “It’s just like fantasyland in here, isn’t it?” It’s good to be back here in the midst of the yarn fumes.

Sheri lorna’ssolemate,madtoshpashminaandmadtoshsport
areallonmyshoppinglisttoday

I’ve officially started my Project Three – a throw.

This month we’ve been celebrating our Fifth Anniversary by sharing different exclusive colorways with you. Our first one was from The Sanguine Gryphon on their Bugga base, and this week’s was from Lorna’s Laces on their Solemate base. (We have a few skeins left, if you missed it.) We’ll have one more for you in next Monday’s Update.

In the meantime, we wanted to share our anniversary blog contest with you. We will be randomly drawing five winners from all of today’s blog comments and each winner will receive a $50 Loopy Ewe Gift Certificate! To enter, just answer this question in the comments below (or email us the answer, if you’re shy …). We’ll draw the winners at the end of next week. So here is the question to answer:

What is your favorite vegetable?

You thought we were going to make you say “Happy Anniversary”, right? Or “Tell us your favorite thing about the shop”? Or “How long have you been hanging out with us at The Loopy Ewe”? Nope. We want to know your favorite vegetable. We don’t always like to be predictable.

Sheri thatalsomeansfiveyearsofbloggingandrun-on-sentenceclosings.Jeesh.

The competition was fierce, and it was hard to make a decision. But the final winner is Lulu’s Lightening Bolt. I picked this one because not only is the inspiration-photo pretty, but I liked the story behind it. These campers really got into the spirit of Camp Loopy. They said, “After one of our hikes got cancelled due to a thunder and lightening storm, we decided we would love a yarn to memorialize our time spent in the lodge together waiting out the storm, watching the wonderful colors light up the sky.” Click here if you’d like to see the photo. I used the random number generator to pick three comments for winners on their Ravelry thread. Cairnknits, Brainsneezes and Shedubba each win a $20 Loopy gift certificate for participating in the winning colorway thread!

I also have the winner of our Second Quarter Challenge, which was to knit for charity (or using a pattern that benefits a charity). The winner is Sarah from MN who knit the Japanese Garden Shawl (which was designed by Wendy Johnson, with pattern proceeds for April donated to the Red Cross. Wendy’s generous contribution brought in more than $6000 for the Red Cross!) Sarah donated her beautifully finished shawl to Wrapped in Care, a charity that provides shawls to women in the hospital who have just lost a baby to stillbirth or neonatal loss. Sarah has won a $35 Loopy Ewe Gift Certificate, for the Challenge.

We’re still tallying votes on the Project One Reader’s Choice award, so we’ll wait and announce all Project One winners in a week or so. Just know that we’re working on it. And then pretty soon it will be time to vote on Project Two.  Your projects this summer have been stunning.

Before I go – here’s a quick and healthy (as promised) recipe to try out this summer. We had this at a friend’s house this summer and it quickly became one of our favorite side dishes.

Susan’s Roasted Sweet Potatoes

4-6 sweet potatoes
Olive Oil
Oregano
Salt
Thyme

Peel the sweet potatoes and slice them into 1/2″ thick discs. Put in a large bowl and add a few tablespoons of olive oil, 1 tsp. of Oregano, and 1 tsp. Thyme. Stir to coat well. Layer the potato discs in a single layer onto a foil-covered baking sheet. Sprinkle with salt and more Thyme and Oregano, if desired. Bake at 350 degrees for about an hour, or until tender.

We have big things going on downtown this weekend. So much to explore. What are you doing this weekend?

Sheri surehappytohaveKnittingDaughterhomeforaweek

I promised to show you my favorite part of this place and here it is: the back yard. We have an overabundance of evergreen trees, as well as common ground on one side and in the back. You can be out on the deck and not see another house. (If you had been to our St. Louis house, you know that we had people RIGHTTHERE on either side and in the back. So this is wonderful. I anticipate spending lots of time back there, once things settle down a bit.)

And a few of you wanted to know where the cats like to hang out in the new house. Here’s Gracie’s favorite place – sitting along the back of the couch, looking out the window into the back yard.  Then falling asleep for a long cat nap.

Zoe is also into cat naps and can be found anywhere there is sunshine. Like on our bed in the afternoon. Or sprawled out on the warm tile in the mornings, as the sun pours into the kitchen. This house has a lot more direct sunlight and both cats are enjoying that. They used to fight over the one little sliver of sunlight that made its way into one of our dining room windows for a few brief moments in St. Louis. Now the whole back of the house is bathed in sunlight in the mornings and they have several warm spots to choose from.

We also have a little front office that I have taken over. In addition to a desk with a computer (where I can do my Loopy stuff), I have my works-in-progress cabinet and a chair for knitting.

So that’s a few areas of the house that we’ve been enjoying during our first two weeks here. But enough about that. Let’s get onto Contest Winners! We have three winners from last week’s Blog Contest, where I asked you to share some favorite summer memories. Thanks for participating! And congratulations to the winners that the random number generator picked:  Agata from MN, Retha from CT, and Michele from Saskatoon, who each win a $35 Loopy Ewe Gift Certificate.

Now that all of the entries (751!) have been uploaded to the Project One photo gallery for Camp Loopy, pop over there and pick out some of your favorites. Aren’t they amazing? We’d like to award a Reader’s Choice Award, in addition to a couple of other awards that we’re going to do. Can you help us? Send your choice for your personal favorite to support @ theloopyewe.com and we’ll tally the votes and award prizes next week. Speaking of Photo Galleries, I’m working on the Project Two gallery. So far we’ve had 200 photos submitted and these mittens, socks and gloves are just gorgeous. Such happy colors! I’ll keep working on going through all of them to get them approved. I know you’d like to see them asap. I am just so proud of all of you who have been camping along with us this summer. You’ve inspired each other, and you’ve certainly inspired me. It has been a lot of fun! I hope you’re participating in Project Three with us. Remember, even if you have not done Project One or Two, you can still participate and join us in Project Three. Come along!

Sheri whoneedstoadjustbacktoaworking”sleep”schedule.
Stillstayinguptoolateinthep.m.andneedingtoomuchcoffeeinthea.m.