We had so much fun with the first DC-KAL! I truly lost track of how many people participated, but there were a lot. There are 83 photos that were posted by June 1st in our photo gallery, and even more of you who kept us updated on your progress in the KAL threads on the Loopy Groupie board on Ravelry. I hope you will still finish your sweaters and share the photos with us. They’re very inspiring, and I’ll be ready to jump into another sweater pattern this fall when it’s not so hot.

It’s time to start up another one and this one will be fun, too. I like making the KAL about a certain yarn, and then letting everyone be creative with what they do with that yarn. For our first KAL, you could pick any sweater you wanted to make with Dream in Color Classy. For this KAL, you can pick any pattern you want to make with Dream in Color Baby! I wanted to pick a yarn that would be lighter to knit up for the summer months, and Baby is perfect. No, we won’t always be knitting with Dream in Color yarns for our KAL’s (I have the next KAL already figured out and it’s not DC), but I know many of you fell in love with other colorways during the first KAL and this will give you a chance to experiment with another one of their amazing colors. (Click on that photo to make it larger and see some of them up close!) The other thing I like about Baby is that it can be knit up as a laceweight, or a fine fingering weight. You can do shawls or scarves, cowls or mitts, hats or socks, as long as you pay attention to your gauge and needle size. I had some people doing a challenge a few months back where they were buying 2 colors of Baby because they had to knit socks by using two different colored laceweight yarns together, knit as one. What a fun exercise that would be! I had a great time pairing up colorways. (And gorgeous results, no doubt, with two DC colors intermixing.) For those of you participating in Summer of Socks, this might be a good option, as I’m sure you’d like to be knitting socks during this time. This is also a good chance to get a jump on holiday knitting by picking something that you can do for a gift. (I can’t believe I said that. I never start holiday knitting this early, even though I swear I’m going to.) I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with for the KAL. I have already picked my colorway and pattern (In Vino Veritas and Gust – although I think I will make Gust wider than the pattern calls for.) We’re going to again offer you a 20% discount on Dream in Color Baby for this KAL, from now until the end of this month. All you have to do to get the discount is to leave us an order note telling us that you’re participating in the KAL and telling us what pattern you’re going to knit up. We’ll take the 20% off of your DC Baby when we process your order. (Note – if we run out of the colorway you need in Baby, just let us know by June 30th which color you need and how many skeins, and we’ll get it ordered for you at the discount price.) This KAL will go from now until October 1st.

I have knitting to show you. Remember when I mentioned that I had started a Feather and Fan scarf (free pattern here on Wendy’s blog) at the Spring Fling? Well, they’re addictive. I must say, they do take a rather long time to knit, because it’s 58 stitches across and it’s fingering weight yarn, but the results are so fun and the pattern is easy-peasy. The scarf I started at the Fling (and just finished, because I had to complete my KAL sweater in the middle of it all) is out of Am Kalten Polar from Wollmeise. I had done a few inches of it at the Fling and then set it down on the table to wander around and talk to people. I looked over a few minutes later and Claudia (the Wollmeise herself) had picked it up and was knitting on it! So that makes this scarf special. While I was in the middle of that one, I started another one that I wanted to do as a gift for someone. (Because I’m fickle like that – always starting something new.) This time I used Noro, because I could just envision how pretty the Noro colors would look in this pattern. I like it so much that I’ve already wound another skein of Noro into a cake to make another. (Um, and I’ve already wound another skein of Wollmeise into a cake to make another out of that, too. I told you these were addictive.) Both scarves were knit out of 1 skein of yarn, on size 4 needles. Of course I’m starting my KAL first, because I am bound and determined to finish this one before 11:45 pm, the day it is due. Ahem.

In other news, we sold our first spinning wheel! Tracey had been eyeing the very wheel that had already arrived here (I was going to use it as a shop wheel, but so far it had remained untouched) and she said she’d buy it if Loopy put his paws hooves on it before it shipped. Loopy was happy to do that, and now the wheel is on its way to a new home. We’re really excited about offering wheels here and we’ll keep you posted when they start arriving and go up on the website, later this summer (including news on what lines we’ll have and which models.) Two questions that people keep asking can be answered now – “Will it count towards Frequent Shopper Benefits?” and “Will it include free shipping” can both be answered with a YES! (Not yet a spinner? Ohhhh, just wait. We’ll keep enticing you to join us……)

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DC-KAL report – did you see all of the amazing sweaters that people knit up during this KAL? I know that more of you are working on them – keep sending in your photos. For those who made the June 1st deadline, you get a reward! We’d like you to have:

- a 20% discount on your next order of DC Classy (maximum of 8 skeins, because we think that 8 will make about any sweater!). If you’re like me, you have seen everything that everyone else made and now you have a whole other list of sweaters and DC Colorways that you want to try. So take the yarn for your next one at a special price from us.
- We’ll make it even easier. If you have a particular colorway you want to get, just email me (sheriATtheloopyeweDOTcom) and we’ll reserve it for you. Be sure to let me know how many skeins you’ll need. We’ll email you when it comes in and we’re ready to ship it out to you. (If your photo is now in the KAL photo gallery, you made the deadline and are eligible for these two rewards. If you don’t email us ahead with your colorway/skeins, just leave us an order note on your next DC Classy order and we’ll take the 20% off of that for you. We have a list of those of you who made the deadline. Another complete Classy re-stock coming soon!)

I’m so happy to have finished my sweater, too. (I won’t tell you how much knitting went on this past weekend, but suffice it to say that it was hot off the needles JUST in time for the deadline.) You might remember that the whole reason I started this KAL was so that I’d be forced pressured held accountable encouraged to knit myself a sweater with this DC Classy that I just love. I’m glad it worked. Thanks to all of you who emailed or left me messages on Ravelry to keep me moving forward! And now it’s good to have it done because it’s too hot here to have a cat AND a sweater on your lap while you knit. (The cat is non-negotiable. I can’t sit and knit without Zoe hopping right up and settling in, FPS. Gracie knows that that is Zoe’s spot and leaves her to it. Luckily. Gracie is twice the size and has long hair. That’s an even hotter bundle of cat for a lap!) I used the Cloud Jungle colorway and made the body and the sleeves longer. (It’s the Mr. Greenjeans pattern, found here.)  I also added four buttons instead of just one. After seeing all of the photos, I have picked out a few new sweaters that I want to knit next (in the fall, when I’m ready to have a sweater on my lap again):

This one, and this one, and this one and this one and this one. Just to start with. Because I actually didn’t see one sweater photo in the gallery that I didn’t like. (I have my work cut out for me. Good thing we have monthly orders in with Dream in Color….)

I have another KAL cooked up for us and will tell you all about that shortly. I wanted to give the rest of you two or three more weeks to finish your sweaters before starting up a new one. This next one is going to be fun, too, so stay tuned. I’ll tell you about it at the end of the month.

Remember in my Three Things post on Friday I told you that we were going to hit the restaurant Granite City over the weekend? Here is the main reason to head there for their Sunday Brunch. Every table gets these massive cinnamon rolls that have the best caramel sauce poured over the top. Yum. The other thing I liked was the decor – all Mission Oak-ish, which is totally me. (Valerie – Mission Oak! Come visit and we’ll go there!) Now we’ll have to go back for a regular meal there, as I hear the Asian Chicken Salad is wonderful.

Thanks for all of your entries in last week’s contest! We did a Monday Morning Sneak Up this week just for you early birds. (I know it wasn’t quite as early as some of you would have liked, but since we don’t work on Sundays, we had a couple of things to finish up Monday morning before we could post it.) Congratulations to our randomly-selected contest winner: Petunia from Delaware. She has received a $30 Loopy Gift Certificate!

I’m heading out to the TNNA Market this weekend and looking forward to that. These twice-a-year markets are important for staying in tune with what’s going on in the industry, and making sure that we spot fun new things to have at The Loopy Ewe. I’ll fill you in when I get back! I’ll be out of email/blog range from Friday through Monday, but will be back at Loopy Central on Tuesday morning to catch up. (Of course the Elves will be here shipping out all of your orders during this time. No interruption to that!) Be sure to catch the blog this Friday, though. We’ll have a special one for you.

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