Ok, it’s really just Cicadas. But it sure sounds like there are 982 people lined up and down my street, each vigorously shaking a set of maracas. (Is Cicada Season over yet?) Some areas – and I’m betting our neighborhood is one of those – can have up to a million cicadas in a one acre area. Isn’t that a lovely thought? Guess what flew down into our fireplace? It has kept both cats highly entertained. Fortunately, the fireplace is very well sealed and that bug is not going to be getting out into my house.

I walked into work the other morning and darned if there wasn’t a really LOUD cicada buzz. In my office. Seriously? I went to get Elves Karen and Donna to help me look for it (I was sure it was in my ceiling tiles) but as we were walking back to my office, Karen said, “Wait a minute. It’s on your back.”  At which point I jumped up and down yelling “Get it off! Get it off!” and Karen kept saying, “Well hang on just a minute…”. I wasn’t really in the mood to “hang on just a minute”. I had visions of it flying up into my hair or buzzing around me face. She finally flicked it off (I’m sure it took her several minutes to work up the courage – or at least 15 seconds), I continued jumping up and down and screeching, “ew ew ew ew” (because apparently having a bug on my back turns me into a 10 year old sissy girl), and Elf Donna killed it. Mission accomplished. (For you bug lovers who think we should have taken it back outside? Sorry.)

Of course then I started thinking about the alternative. I’m pretty sure it must’ve rode over to Loopy in the car with me. There are more cicadas on my street than in the Loopy parking lot. I’m just thankful that it didn’t start buzzing on my shoulder during the ride over, because I’m thinking I might have caused an accident.

No Update for tonight, just because we didn’t get much in this past week. We do, however, have a ton of stuff on order and arriving soon! And in the meantime, we’ll keep getting your Camp Loopy orders packed up and shipped out. I’m glad so many of you are camping along with us. It will be fun! If you haven’t yet picked out the yarn and pattern for your first project, pop over and shop. We’ve already sent out some really gorgeous color combinations for this two-color project. Watch for our first Camp Contest in Wednesday’s blog.

Sheri whoisprettysureyoudon’twanttoseeanymorecicadaphotos.
Icouldtakeabunch,butI’llspareyou.

We’re full up, here at The Loopy Ewe. We have 3500 sq. ft. of space, and we have used every bit of it. We have packed the aisles (here’s one side of one part, but of the rest of our Loopy space looks just like this):

We have used the tops of shelves:

We have built shelves in the old kitchen area and filled them with these tubs (double deep, filled with our Loopy Ewe Solid Line loveliness!):

We’re just plain full up, and I have no desire to move at the moment.

There is a weird little alcove outside our other door (down the hall from our main Loopy entrance). The alcove has always been completely empty and cuts behind the bathrooms in the main hallway. That is our back door (on the left) and the door to the business that has the very end of our building, on the right. No one else ventures off the main hallway, into this weird little alcove.

Seeing the empty space, I got the idea that maybe we could put cabinets in there for a little extra storage. I asked permission this past summer, the landlord gave me the go-ahead to do it, and WH built these really really nice, lock-able cabinets. White cabinets on white walls. Nothing flashy. Just custom-made, heavy duty cabinets. See? (Before there were there? Just an empty, never-used corner in the alcove.)

In the meantime, the building obtained new management, and the new landlord called to say that “someone” had complained about the cabinets. Since there are only two doors in the alcove and one is ours, it doesn’t take much thinking to figure out where the complaint came from. Apparently this has a “negative impact” on the (otherwise empty, boring, useless) space. White cabinets. On white walls. In an empty little alcove. What do you think? I think neon pink knitted closet covers might give them a bit of that “negative impact”, don’t you? I’d just like them to live up to their reputation. Right now the whole thing just makes me say FPS.

Sheri alwayssomethinginterestinggoingonaroundhere

*for pete’s sake

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I shared what usually goes on outside of my office window? People talking on their phones. A lot. And here I was, thinking that it was a bit annoying and all. I’ve changed my mind. I want more of them. When the phone talkers aren’t there, I have a skate boarder. The first time I heard this noise, I thought the street crew was back, jackhammering on the street. But no – it’s just a skateboarder, zipping back and forth on the walk that goes along the side of the building. I wish I could record the noise and let you hear it. You’re really missing out on this headache-inducer. On the other hand, I realize that there are a lot of worse things that kids this age could be doing. Maybe skate boarding after school isn’t so bad. And don’t you love it that I keep you posted on things around the Loopy Building? I’ll tell you another story about that, soon. There’s always something going on around here. I know you’re waiting on the edge of your seats. But back to the issue at hand – if there are people talking on their phones out there, then no one can skateboard. Now I need more phone loiterers.

I have a new recipe for today. WH wanted “some kind of chicken casserole” for dinner, so I took another recipe and tweaked it a bit and came up with this. Make up a fruit salad and some fresh steamed broccoli, and you have dinner.

Chicken Poppy Seed Casserole

6 chicken breasts, cooked and cubed
1 cup sour cream (I used Light)
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 1/2 cups milk
1 md. onion, chopped
3 cups cooked noodles, al dente (I used the German noodle spaetzle, but you can also use corkscrew or small macaroni noodles)
2 Tbl. poppy seeds

Combine the above ingredients and put into a 9 x 13 pan. Then top with:

2 tubes of Ritz crackers, crushed
1 stick of margarine, melted
1 Tbl. poppy seeds

Mix together and put on top of the casserole.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes (longer if you make it ahead and refrigerate it first.)

Sheri lookingforwardtomyweekend,howaboutyou?

Need to know what to invest in? Wondering who is having an argument with their spouse? Want to hear about the trouble that Little Bobby got into the first week in school? Come visit my office. My desk is pushed up to this window, and this is THE PLACE for all break-time phone conversations to occur. I think most of the people in our building stand here at one time or another. And they talk loudly. Like these people:

Sometimes, I think it’d be fun to yank the blinds up and scare the latte right out of their cups. (Is that wrong? Was I having a bad day when that idea occurred to me?) They have no idea that they starred on a knitting blog today. That makes me feel a little better about the whole situation. These weren’t all on the same day. But after it happened over and over and over again, I decided to take photo evidence. You never know when I might need it. Now I just need to get photos of the other 23 people who make this a habit in our building. Or maybe I’ll stop now.

Anything interesting going on outside of your windows today?

Sheri Icouldmovemydesk,butwhatfunwouldthatbe?

… that this bug caught a ride to work on my car window the other day. (Really? Was this in my garage when I left?? Ewww.) It was about 2″ long and it gave me the creeps. Does anyone know what this is? I hope I never see one again. I was half afraid that it would jump at me when I took the picture.

… that there are too many projects that I want to knit and there is too much yarn that I want to use, and never enough time. And that there are too many nights when I flip through Ravelry instead of knitting. (Yes, I do see the irony in that. Getting rid of the second problem would help solve the first, wouldn’t it?)

… that Knitting Daughter’s last day at Loopy Central is tomorrow. She has been a huge help all summer long and we’ll miss her here!

… that there are five packages of frozen broccoli in our freezer. (But do I get credit for taking care of the chicken bre*sts and the pickles and the almonds?)

… that part of our Dream in Color re-stock arrived (after you all cleaned us out last week) and it really is yarn, not a new Guitar Hero and a refrigerator for the shop. (Those Dream in Color gals like to re-use boxes. We’re fine with that. Except the time that they used a box from their recent “Chicago Cubs Desk Chair” purchase and the UPS driver was horrified, thinking that we had ordered a chair that glorified one of the St. Louis Carinal’s arch rivals.)

… that it was cloudy when I left for work, then it poured HUGE drops during my 3 minute commute and as I walked into the building, and then the sun came out 5 minutes later. What are the odds?

… that the yarn for next week’s update gets photo-ed tomorrow, and there are still too many boxes of it to unpack.

… that there are bare b*tts in this calendar that Wollmeise has put out for 2010. (Not really. It’s funny! But be warned.) Claudia and her husband Andreas (who is in the calendar, by the way) thought that a calendar with guys in Wollmeise-knitted-accessories, carefully placed, would be a great way to raise money for a charity. (Remember the movie Calendar Girls, where they did that?) You can click over to get them from Claudia directly, and to read more about the project. The photos are done in black and white, which really makes the bright colors of the Wollmeise yarn/knitting pop. My favorite months are May and December. And February, because that’s Claudia’s husband’s month. And July, because I want all of the socks that the guy is pinning on the clothesline. (But did I warn you about the bare b*tts? Ok, good. Forewarned.)

Anything bugging you today? Or is it just me?

Sheri whoiscontemplatingthebestplacetohang
acalendarwithbareb*ttshereatLoopy

I decided that it’s time for an “It Bugs Me” post again. It has been awhile. And what made me think of it? Last night as I was sitting there shredding envelope after envelope of credit card offers, it came to me. “This bugs me.” When you have a family of four, two family-owned businesses, and two college-aged kids, the credit card offers that arrive every day are annoying. What a complete waste of time and money. (Particularly annoying are the ones that contain a piece of bubble wrap to make it feel more substantial like something fun is in there, the ones that contain a fake ticket to “the destination of your choice”, and the ones that have a piece of heavy cardboard in there. I did find a dollar bill in one of them. That was unique.) Credit card offers. They bug me. (And that photo was as close as I could find to a “bug” around here, which is probably a very good thing.)

It also bugs me that I’m having so much fun knitting scarves and there are only so many you can wear. And it really does need to be pretty cool to wear them. You can wear socks on most days (except the very hottest) but you can only wear merino scarves when it’s cool. I finished the Noro Silk Garden Worsted scarf (colorway 282) in a modified Chevron-type pattern and I really like how it turned out. (Knitting with Noro is always an adventure because of the way the colors play out.) I mixed a few different patterns together and came up with my own version: cast on 36 stitches, knit a row, and then start in on this pattern and work on it as long as you want it, ending with a knit row. (I used 2 1/2 skeins for this):
Row 1: K2tog (x 3), K f&b (x 6), K2tog (x 6), K f&b (x 6), K2tog (x 3)
Row 2: Purl Row 3: Knit Row 4: Purl
K2tog = knit two stitches together as one. K f&B = Knit into the front of the stitch and then knit into the back of the same stitch, then pop the stitch off of the left needle.

And speaking of projects completed, here is the Creatively Dyed Seacell Roving that I spun up. This was a colorway from her first roving order here called Forest Path. (We put up more fun new roving colors from Dianne this week.) The roving didn’t bug me – it spun up like a dream. What bugs me is that I feel like I’m doing a good job while I’m spinning it, getting nice even yarn most all of the time. However, when I ply it and look at the finished results, it doesn’t look anywhere near even. I guess I just need to keep practicing. (Actually, given the quantity of very cool roving here, that is not going to be a hardship.)

Another thing that really bugs me is that this is Cassie’s last week at The Loopy Ewe. Cassie is in college and we hired her for the summer (so that the regular Elves could be a little more flexible with their summer schedules.) Cassie is getting married in a week and so her time here is about over. She has been a huge help and we’re going to miss her. We had a Going Away/Good Luck with the Wedding party for her here today, which was fun! (We’re sending her off with one of those gorgeous Atenti bags – the one that she has had her eye on all summer long.) But it bugs me that we’re losing her, albeit to a good cause! (Knitting Daughter has already laid claim to Cassie’s job next summer.)

Let’s end this post on a positive note! Something that makes me happy – our Second Anniversary “Loopified” Sock Kit! These will go up sometime soon (but not today – we’re not ready yet) and we’re happy to show you the photo of what’s in there! We had Jana at Hand Maiden dye up a special colorway on her Casbah yarn base that we call “Loopified” – the red and black are very “Loopy” colors, and of course the pewter color is in there because of Loopy Kisses, which is also part of being fully “Loopified”. We love how it turned out! Then Debbie O’Neill took the sample skein that Jana had sent and developed a cool pattern out of if, which she calls Halema ‘uma ‘u Socks (which is the name of a volcano, since the colorway reminded her of glowing embers.) To round out the kit, we have a Loopy Ewe Coffee Mug (I love the size and shape of this one), a Loopy Ewe enamel pin (for all of you who keep asking us for these), and two Loopified tattoos (for those of us who are too chicken to get the real thing like Lynda did. And like the others of you who have already emailed for permission to get a real Loopy tattoo, are planning to.) A couple of things to note about the kit – we are limiting it to one per person for now. Also, this has to ship as its own order, since we had to pack it in a certain size cube in order to fully protect the mug. (International orders – we will pack the mugs the VERY best that we can in the international padded envelopes, but we just can’t guarantee them because …. well, we’ve seen some of the things that happen to orders going that far afield. Please order at your own risk.)

So, those are the things that bug me (and make me happy) today. What bugs you lately?

Sheri Friday’spostwillbeaSecondAnniversaryContestPostwithWollmeise&otherprizes.
Don’tmissit!