Thank you for all of your wonderful comments for this month’s blog contest! It has been so fun to read them. (And yes, I do read all of them. I still freak some of you out when I email you back about a blog comment – like you think I don’t read them or something. I promise, I do, and I love that you all take the time to read and comment!) We have three randomly drawn winners from the contest: Doris in MD, Didi in CA and Karen in MN. Your prizes will ship out tomorrow!

I finished my Brooklyn Handspun sock this week and I like the color – Aquatic.  This is done up in Wendy’s S(p)ocks pattern – very easy to memorize and knit up, so it goes quickly. It did get me to thinking about my favorite sock patterns and made me wonder what your favorite sock patterns might be. Typically I like to do different patterns (thus the problem with single socks) but there are some patterns that I like the looks of so much that I know I’ll be making them several different times. One of those is Debbie O’Neil’s Celebratory Chevron Socks pattern. She designed this for our first year anniversary and it’s now available as a free download from the Free Patterns link here on my blog. (There are some very fun patterns there – I hope you’ve downloaded and used many of them.) I used the Celebratory Chevron pattern on The Alpaca Yarn Co. Paca Peds (shown here in the Fireside colorway). This is really pretty yarn when knit up, and it’s wonderfully warm as well.  I love the new colors they have recently come out with. (Anyone else notice that their Vampire Kiss looks a lot like “Loopified” from our Second Anniversary Kit? Great combination of colors.) The other pattern that I had fun knitting and will do again just because I think it turns out so pretty – Meida’s Socks from Nancy Bush’s Favorite Socks book. I knit these with Louet Sport in the Sage colorway and added in a couple of extra repeats on the cuff to make them taller. I have decided that a lot of the single socks that I did for our display here at Loopy Central, can now be made into pairs. Enough time has lapsed that I’m ready and looking forward to doing those patterns again on the second sock. Maybe I’ll put that on my Spring Break schedule.

So leave a comment and tell me which sock patterns you like well enough to do more than once. Or do you seldom knit the same thing twice?

Sheri it’sbeautifuland61degreesheretoday.Timetogoforawalk.

Remember the skein of Mini Mochi that I picked up at TNNA and showed you last week? It went from that ball to this sock during the week. As you can see, I was having too much fun watching the colors play out, and I made it long!  (I still had more yarn left from that skein.) Knit up on size 2′s with 60 stitches with a K3, P1 cuff. This will be up on the website later tonight or tomorrow, in all 8 colors currently available. It reminded me of knitting with handspun – soft and loose and very wonderful.  Yes, I’m knitting the second sock on this, because I want to wear them. What else will you find going up this week? Woolpets, Trekking (new colors and re-stocks), Panda Cotton (new colors and re-stocks), Louet, Sereknity, Beannie Baggies, Cherry Tree Hill Possum Sock, Annie Adams, and more Schaefer Nichole, plus Anne and Lola.

In the “My Accountant Cracks Me Up” category (although I know that “accountant” and “cracks me up” shouldn’t go together), I thought I’d show you the little notes he leaves on all of the different forms he has to prepare for me each quarter. (Another one of the joys of running a business.) Of course I most love the ones where all I have to do is sign them, but even the forms where I have to include a check are made a little easier because his frowny-faces make me laugh. He’s a good accountant anyway, but the faces just elevate him, in my opinion. (Another thing that cracks me up: Sneezing Baby Panda.)

We’re supposed to get a snowstorm tonight. 4-6″. Of course the weathermen here in St. Louis rarely get it right, so I’m not holding my breath. Hopeful, but not holding my breath. I figure if we’re going to have cold temperatures all winter long, which I like, we might as well have the pretty white stuff to go along with it.  I only remember one winter season where I was tired of the snow. It happened my senior year in college and we still had big snowstorms in mid-April. I remember looking out our apartment’s kitchen window and thinking I was going to have to do something drastic if the white stuff didn’t just GO AWAY soon. Fortunately, it did. Go away. Soon.

Sheri areyouinthe”pro-snow”or”no-snow”camp?

There are boxes and boxes of Sanguine Gryphon Bugga! in transit, winging their way to your homes. (Well – hopefully not really winging, although each skein IS named after an insect.) I finished my first sock out of Oak Timberworm and I like it so much that I am going to do the second one pretty darn quickly. I want to wear them this winter. As you know, I’m pretty committed to single socks. It’s not that I don’t want to pair them up and be able to wear them matching, it’s just that there is always another yarn coming into the shop or that we’re contemplating for the shop, that I need to try out. I know many of you have offered to help test knit, and I appreciate that!  We do use test knitters when we’re working on patterns. However, I really like knitting with the yarns that we stock so that I can get a feel for them and get to know how they work up. It’s also important to me to spend time knitting, since I’m running a yarn shop and talking to knitters every day. And of course it’s a good excuse to get out of some things, because I can claim my knitting is “work” when necessary – like, “Sorry Honey, I have to finish this sock up by tomorrow – can’t start in on the laundry yet.”  But then on Sundays, which has always been a “no work day” in our house, I knit because “it’s relaxing and how I choose to spend my day off”.  So, conveniently, sometimes its work and sometimes it’s fun.) This pattern is “Take Flight” from Monica Knits. I thought that was a particularly appropriate name for a yarn named after a bug, and it was a very fun knit. As usual, I knit it toe up with a short-row heel and didn’t reverse the pattern – so if you use this one and knit it as written, yours will “fly” in the opposite direction. We have more Bugga! on order, including a double batch of Oak Timberworm, my favorite.

Now that all of the photos are officially posted from our Dream in Color Baby Knit-A-Long, it’s time to check them out and take a vote. The assignment was to knit something out of DC Baby, and there were a lot of different “somethings” that people knit up. Help us pick “The Knitter’s Choice” winner by emailing susan AT theloopyewe DOT com with your favorite by next Tuesday, Oct. 28th. We’ll tally up the winner and we’ll also draw one winner by lottery.  Both will receive a Gift Certificate from The Loopy Ewe.  Anyone who participated and had their photo uploaded in time, can claim a 20% discount on their next order of DC Baby.  Just tell us in your order notes that you had your photo up in the gallery in time for the contest.  Currently, we’re doing a Fourth Quarter Loopy Challenge and your goal is to knit some kind of hand covering (gloves, mittens, fingerless mitts, etc.) and post a photo in the Q4-08 photo gallery by 12/31. I figured that this would be a good way to get some holiday gifts knit up, in addition to challenging you to learn something new while you do it!

I’m halfway done with my sock out of the skein of Malabrigo Sock Yarn that my yarn rep sent to me. I’m anxious to show it to you, as it has been fun to see the colors mix. I know you all are waiting on this yarn, and I promise that I have ordered a whopping amount of it. We will get this just as soon as they are ready to ship U.S. orders out in November.  You’re going to love it. (I also have a whopping amount of Malabrigo Lace on order, so I’ll keep you posted on that. It’s fun to have our new space so that we can fill it up with “whopping” amounts of yarn!) We’ll have more DC Classy going up later today – the UPS gal just dropped it off – along with a re-stock of Claudia Hand Painted. I hope you always click on the “See What’s New” button when you visit The Loopy Ewe – we re-stock often.

I’ll leave you with a photo of Knitting Daughter and Casey-the-dog from last weekend. Casey is 12 years old and arthritic, but she still gets excited when she sees rabbits and squirrels in the yard, and when she sees her college kids coming through the door for a visit.

Sheri it’sfinallyhandknitsockweatherhereinSt.Louisandmyfeetarehappy!

Clearly I need to take a week off to knit more often. (Well, and a 14 hr. car ride each way to Colorado and back didn’t hurt, either.) I took all of my knitting in another one of my new favorite bags – one from Offhand Designs. I ordered one to try it out …. and I just ordered more to share with all of you because I liked it so much. I’ll let you in on those when they come in – hopefully soon. (I have a bag problem. You needn’t point out how I keep adding bags to my collection. I already know about it. And besides, it doesn’t help to comment on it, as WH knows full well. It tends to make it worse….) The other two bags that I took with me? A small GoKnit pouch (those will be up at The Loopy Ewe this week) and a Lawre’s Laine bag (beautiful and the perfect size. The inside of mine is lined in the most beautiful purple color. More of those are on order, too.) Yes, I like bags a bit.

First off, I finished a second sock. I know – that’s completely against my character. However, I owe this pair of socks to my very good friend Janice and let’s just say she ought to have had them awhile back. I picked a bad pattern for these socks and that’s what kept tripping me up. The pattern itself is not bad – I really like how it turned out. But this pattern plus loosely twisted yarn plus fuzzy alpaca equals a sock that you never want to work on. It’s something I found in some stitch dictionary and you knit the third stitch on the left needle, then knit the second stitch, then knit the first stitch, then pull the whole load of them off the left needle at the same time. Why didn’t I just frog it when I was doing the first one? Because I had tried two other patterns with this sock and frogged both of those. (I do realize that shouldn’t matter. Next time, I will frog the third time, too.) These socks are very warm and wonderful, and that’s important to Janice who lives in Iowa and doesn’t like the winter very much. These will keep her toes toasty. Just in time for spring.

The other two socks I knit (back to my old self – both are singles) are yarns that will go up at The Loopy Ewe next week. The first is Creatively Dyed in her Luxury Sock yarn base. It is made up of 80% merino, 10% nylon, and 10% cashmere. Not only is this yarn wonderful to work with, but the resulting sock feels great on, and you can see that the dyework is gorgeous. I knit this with Cookie A’s monkey pattern (available free on Knitty) but I knit them toe up and did short row heels. I like this pattern toe up. It’s the first time that I have done it this way, and I think I’ll give the cuff-down-Monkeys the heave-ho and always do it toe-up from now on. (Speaking of Cookie A, she has 3 new sock patterns that we will have for you by the end of next week. Her patterns are so fun!) We have several wonderful colorways in this line that are being photo-ed here this week. I know you’ll like them!

The second single sock is from Spindle City Yarns, and I really liked working with this one, too. I am making these as a birthday gift and this is not my size sock, so that will force me to make the matching one and get them done. Although now that it’s done, I kinda wish I had made it for myself. The intensity of color (and the combination of the colors in this one) makes for a very pretty sock. I used the Cross-Hatch pattern from the More Sensational Knitted Socks book. Another easy pattern to do, and I like the results. I also like that this yarn base is 75% Superwash Wool and 25% Nylon. I have had to mend a few socks lately and I’m beginning to like the nylon addition more and more. I will be knitting more from this line, as there are a lot of “must have” colors in this first batch that they sent to us.

I also started my Dream in Color Knit Along sweater while on vacation. I have not knit a sweater since Junior High. (It was ugly, too. So I really shouldn’t count it.) I was a bit apprehensive about the whole sweater thing, but I really wanted a sweater out of DC Classy, so I started the KAL. I knew if I had accountability from a few others an amazing number of you who decided to knit with me, then I’d get it done. I have discovered that I really love sweater knitting, and now I’m on the lookout for other patterns that I want to do. I’m not sure if I’ll be convinced to use other yarns for sweaters besides the DC Classy, though. It’s such wonderful yarn to work with and there are several other colorways that I want to have for sweaters. (Yes, we will have more Classy in again this month.) Some of you KALers are already done with your sweaters. I have had fun seeing the photos come in to the gallery! Keep sending them in. Our official ending date is June 1st, so there is still plenty of time. I’ll show you a progress photo of my sweater next week.

Speaking of the photo galleries, you have until the end of this week to submit your Q1-08 photo for our First Quarter Challenge! We’ll do voting next week. I will show you what I made next month, as it’s a gift for someone in April and I can’t show it yet. We’ll also be announcing the Q2-08 next week, so stay tuned for that.

Sheri thosetwoduckswerewalkingaroundtheStarbucksparkinglotthismorning
Obviouslytheyarecompletelycaffeinatedandjustabitconfused.

Really, this would be a rather boring display if I had pairs of socks all lined up, don’t you think? (Well, it’d still be a little cool. But waaay cooler to have all of those different colors, I think.) This is a “Single Sock Display” that WH made for me here at Loopy Central. All of those beautiful socks, so why not display them? I love it. Although I must say, seeing them all hanging there every single day really makes me wish that some of them were done. I really like some of those socks. On the other hand, CLEARLY I need to knit a few more to finish filling it up. It holds 24 and I only have 19. That’s a case for knitting more single socks if ever there was one. (And because someone asked me to identify all of them: Misty Mountain Farm, Woolly Boully, Farmhouse, Araucania, bellamoden, Perchance to Knit, sKNITches, Chewy Spaghetti, Louet Fingering, Louet Sport, Yarn Love, Cherry Tree Hill, Urban Gypz, The Alpaca Yarn Co, Claudia Hand Painted, Yarn Pirate, Dream in Color, Socks that Rock, Sheepaints, Yarn Pirate.  That’s left to right and it helps if you click on the photo to make it larger!)

Wendy has been talking about Daylight Savings Time, and I think I have come up with the best solution possible. She wondered why we had to “lose” an hour on a weekend, but someone pointed out that if we changed days and lost it during the week, we’d also have to gain an hour during the week in the fall. Ugh. No one wants to work an extra hour in their work week in the fall. So my solution is this. In the Spring, we move the clocks forward on a Monday afternoon at 4:00 p.m. Imagine this – you’re at work, you’re watching the clock, it’s dragging all afternoon, it’s 2:00, it’s 2:30, it’s 3:40, it’s 3:59, and then BAM – it’s 5:00. Time to go home. And of course you get paid for that extra hour, because after all, you were there until 5 pm. Now in the Fall, we move the clocks back on a Sunday afternoon at 2:00 pm. Why a Sunday afternoon? Because I never work on Sundays and that’s my favorite knitting time of the week. So you’re sitting there enjoying your afternoon, knitting away, it’s 1:00, it’s 1:30, it’s 1:59, and then BAM – it’s 1:00 again and you get to start your Sunday afternoon all over again. How sweet is that? I think this could work.

Sheri stillgoingtobedlateandwakingupfeelingreallytired.
Ireallydon’tlikemovingtheclocksforward.

Well you all made it such a fun birthday for me. I wanted to show you pictures of some of the things that came in the mail over this past week! I showed you some of the mini socks in last week’s post, so now I’ll show you some of the other knitted things which arrived. (And some of you send non-knitted things which were equally fun – woohoo!) I am a lucky lucky gal to have such wonderful Loopy friends.

First the “not socks but still knitted” items. My friend Janice sent me this gorgeous charcoal felted bag (and check out the cute Loopy pin on the front that she had made for me!) I have also included the other wonderful felted bag she made for me last fall, because I don’t think that I ever showed that on the blog. I love them both and she is a very talented knitter/felter, isn’t she?

Next is this fun “Sparkle the Peacock” sporting six mini-socks from Dawn! Sparkle comes from Debbie (who also makes the Sock Blocker Keychains that we sell) and I’ve been talking to Debbie about having Sparkle here for awhile. I think it’s finally going to happen soon, so start making your mini socks! (Same pattern as the keychains.) Dawn did overtime by making up all 6 “feathers” on Sparkle and he looks darned cute sitting on my desk here at Loopy Central.

Look at the pretty roving that Katie from Yarn Love sent to me! This is a new colorway that she made up for my birthday called “Sweet Sheri” and I have left it at work to keep from tempting me to spin it up. I think it might be on my schedule for the weekend because I can’t leave it alone any more.

In addition to the roving, she also dyed up the colorway on sock yarn and knit me up a pair of socks! I know that you will love this colorway, so she is dyeing some up for us to have here at The Loopy Ewe. She read my Ravelry profile and saw that some of my favorite colors are cranberry, chocolate, sage and navy. She’s a good sleuth!

The next pair of socks came from Sabrina and were knit up in the Cherry Tree Hill Cherry Blossom colorway. I told her that this was so perfect because sometimes I wear pink and wish I had socks that had pink in them! (Not that I think your socks have to match your outfit. Because they so don’t.) But still, I was lacking “pink” in my sock wardrobe.

Then there was this collaborative effort from Susan and Katie, which means that I get to “wear” two friends at once – ha! (Do you sometimes feel like you’re taking your friends along with you for the day when you wear socks that someone has made you? You don’t? Oh. Me neither, then…..) This is from Fiesta Baby Boom in the Taos colorway, and honest-to-goodness this is one colorway that has been on my “must knit” list since Fiesta started coming in. I love this combo, and I love the socks even more.

The last pair of socks are my first ever socks knit from handspun. My friend Allen (from Numma Numma) handspun the yarn and then knit these socks out of it. Aren’t they beautiful? And I wish you could feel how soft they are. They may be responsible for making me feel like I need to handspin my sock yarn from now on. (Well, ok. You all know that I am not that caliber of a spinner yet, but I have high hopes. Someday.)

I also received a pair of amazing socks from Claudia in Germany (the Wollmeise herself!). I wish I could show them to you because they took my breath away when I opened them. However, it’s done up in the pattern and yarn that she did for our Sock Club shipment, so it’s all a secret at this point! I’ll show them when that club kit has gone out, later in the year.

So there you have it – the new knitted lovelies that arrived to help me celebrate my birthday. I love them to pieces and I know that I am completely and hopelessly spoiled. I admit it.

What are you knitting this weekend? I’m going to finish up a sock, work on my lace project, and spin. I haven’t started my DC KAL sweater yet, but I have plenty of time to finish before June 1st. I do have the swatch done and the first two skeins wound, so it will get started soon!

Sheri didn’tIJUSTgetmyhaircut?BecauseIneedanotheronealreadyand
I’dreallyratherspendthattimeknitting.Andno,Idon’tknitwhileIgetmyhaircut.
Thatisjustweird.Unlessyoudoit.ThenIwon’tcallitweird.Butitiskinda.