I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day (for those who celebrated it this week) and now I’m sure you’re out shopping ’til you drop, getting the bargains at Target (although the lady in the commercial worries me), Best Buy, etc.  I’m not one of those people who get up early to get a bargain, just because I like my sleep a little too much! But I might get out there later today, just to get more Christmas shopping done.

I wanted to show you a picture of our newest elf. Remember Lucy’s first visit to The Loopy Ewe? She came back to visit again this week, and she has grown! We posed her by Loopy again for comparison. This time, she didn’t want to sleep – she just wanted to play. In fact, she nose-butted Loopy right over, after this photo was taken. (I’m sure she thinks he’s a rather boring 4-legged companion.) We were glad that Lucy’s momma (Elf Donna) brought her by for a visit again.

Are you getting any knitting done? I’m working on a Little Jazz, a Tesni Shawl out of Malabrigo Rios, and a sock out of DC Smooshy with Cashmere. Trying not to cast on a Shur’tugal, because I liked the looks of the one that my friend James put on his blog this week.

Sheri youknowmebetterthanthat.
ImightcastthatShur’tugalonafterall.

It has been fun reading about the projects (and color combos) that you’re thinking about for the Third Quarter Challenge. In addition to the blog comments, also check out the thread on the Ravelry Loopy Groupie board if you’re still looking for ideas. Then – get knitting!

Several of you have emailed to ask if we were doing Loopy’s Summer Vacation again this summer. We’ve done that for 3 years in a row, and this time we want to mix it up a little. (And since so many of you now have your own Little Loopy guys, we’re going to have you use those, or your favorite Loopy Tote, or you in a Loopy shirt/sweatshirt – anything with our logo on it, for the photos.) Here’s the deal. Every so often (not just this summer), we’ll throw out a Loopy Photo Topic, and we’ll give you a few weeks to take a photo and submit it to the “Where in the World is Loopy?” photo gallery. When the deadline is up, we’ll pick a winner to receive a fun prize. We’re starting you out with a super easy assignment: show us a picture of Loopy visiting someplace in your hometown. It could be:

Seeing the chocolates in Belgium:

Visiting the beach in Hilton Head:

Checking out his ancestors in Yorkshire:

Riding horses in MN:

Or any number of things from YOUR hometown. Pick a spot to take your Little Loopy (or your Loopy tote, or your Loopy paraphenalia), and let us see the photo evidence. We’ll pick a winner at the end of July, so you have until 7/31 to upload your photo. (How to upload? Log into your Loopy account, click the blue “Add Photos” link on your account page, and follow the easy steps.) Thanks for taking Loopy along with you. He loves to travel!

We’re celebrating Independence Day here in the U.S. this weekend. The mail service “celebrates” it on Monday, the 5th, by shutting down the mail system, so we will be out of the shop on Monday. All Saturday – Monday orders will start shipping out on Tuesday. (And we will have a regular Monday Update for you. More cool stuff has arrived!)

Sheri minichallengesweaterisdoneandblocking,photossoon…

These three. They did it. I walked into one of the classrooms on Saturday night at the Spring Fling, and found “The Adventures of Loopy” drawn out on the easel. Since these three had been in there preparing Cakeball Trays, they are the ones to blame. Or credit. I think K-the-Cakeball-Maker on the left was the artist, while the others no doubt gave input and spurred her on. (Personally, the whole wordless comic strip made me laugh. But then again, I’m partial to Loopy and felt a little sorry that he had lost his fourth red sock….)

Loopy’s Lost Sock

Have a great weekend and Happy Mother’s Day to all of you who have a mother, are a mother, or know a mother.

Sheri wishingIcouldbringyouLoopyCartoonseveryweek!

I admit that I’m weird and I admit that I’m an animal lover. When you put those two things together, you get a person who comes up with names for the animals that frequent their backyard. (I feel that I know you all well enough to admit that.) The Cardinal Pair that have lived in our backyard for 6-7 years are Fred and Ethel. (Fred had to be the name of the Cardinal. If you’re a St. Louis Cardinals fan, you will totally understand that.) The duck pair are Gus and Mary. Now we have two cute chipmunks. I named the first one Charlie, and then Knitting Daughter came home for the summer and told me that there are two chipmunks, not one, and she named the other one “Chip”.  (Apparently this naming-thing is hereditary.) I guess Charlie is going to be short for Charlene, which happens to be my mother-in-law’s name. It’s a good name.

The interesting thing about Chip and Charlie, is that they have taken full advantage of the fact that our trees need to be pruned. They now climb the huge bush outside the corner of our screen porch, and get themselves onto the “squirrel-proof” birdfeeders. These feeders close up when the weight of a squirrel gets on them. Chipmunks aren’t that heavy. (Although both Chip and Charlie ARE going to be that heavy pretty soon, if we don’t get that bush trimmed up.) They sit there and feast and feast and feast. They have also learned that our cats, Gracie and Zoe, won’t bother them. Well, Zoe (the smaller cat, looking at the camera) would take them out in a second if she could get at them, but since they’re outside and she’s not, she appears to be a safe bet from the chipmunks point of view. Most afternoons and early evenings, the cats can be found sitting right there, watching the excitement unfold beneath their noses. This is their favorite time of year, when it’s cool enough for them to be out on the porch, watching the birds and the ducks.

Zoe’s other favorite place to be is curled up on my lap, whenever I sit down to knit. You’d think that having a lap of cat and a lap of Alpaca would be too hot, but so far it has been very tolerable. For those of you without cats (or lap dogs), this probably looks like a cumbersome way to knit. But you get used to it, if you’re an animal person. This is the Girasole that I’m working on – more news about that in Wednesday’s post.

Sheri goodSneakUpwentuptonight-didyouseeit?

There’s a better crowd under the birdfeeders now. I am happy to say that I haven’t seen the possum pair since I took that photo. That makes me very very happy. We’re back to the duck pair and the regular rabbits and chipmunks scrounging under the birdfeeders. (Just noticed I had typed in “rabbis” instead of “rabbits”. Glad I caught that. We have no rabbis scrounging birdseed at the moment. Just rabbits.) I have to say, Jessica’s comment made me laugh out loud:

“Aww, don’t be so hard on the possums! We had one on our front porch when I was young… my mom picked it up one night… she was outside to get the cat and hadn’t bothered to turn on the porch light… I’m not sure who was more startled, but no one was bitten and the thing actually became sort of an outdoor pet.”

I’m just trying to imagine that. I’m pretty sure I would’ve shrieked and thrown it across the porch without even thinking. And I’m pretty sure the entire neighborhood would’ve heard me.

Check out the Elf Mugs in the Loopy kitchen. I had them done with all of our names on them, and then WH built the handy-dandy mug rack for me. We like having our own mugs! These are made by Twisted River Clayworks, my favorite pottery people over on etsy. I have ordered from them several times and they get the orders out quickly and package them up really well. It’s a pleasure to do business with them. (You might remember me talking about them in this post. They made my very favorite mug!) And here’s another fun etsy seller that I like – MudHutt Studio. I think this memo pad is made to swap out the clay ornament part if you want. I like her whimsical designs.

Sneak Up is up for the week – come see. We’ve added a lot!

Sheri hopingtoworkonGirasoletonight.Anyoneelsemakingonerightnow?

Here in the St. Louis area, if you want acres between your house and the next, you drive about an hour west of the city, or you spend several million dollars. Instead (because we don’t want to drive an hour, and we don’t have a million dollars), we live in a neighborhood with lots of other houses along the block. People walk their dogs, kids ride their bikes, joggers run by with their ipods attached to their heads, and the sound of lawn mowers can be heard from early Spring through late Fall. Typical suburbia. It was interesting enough when we had a raccoon living under our screen porch last spring. (Really, in the middle of a very populated neighborhood? No woods nearby?) I thought he was kind of cute and the cats were enthralled with this interesting creature, but WH pointed the hose under the porch and the raccoon shot out of there like a bandit on the run. We haven’t seen him back. (It’s a good thing. He brought fleas into the yard and shared them with the dog. FPS.)

This spring, we were again surprised to see a pair of mallard ducks in our yard. There is a neighborhood pond about 3 blocks from our house, so I suppose they get their water fix there. But they continue to walk around our yard and waddle under the big bush by the bird feeders almost every morning and night. I know that some of you were guessing that we’d have baby ducks when I mentioned something in Monday’s post. So far, no babies. However, the wildlife IS increasing in our backyard (in the middle of suburbia). Monday morning I looked out and saw these two possums eating birdseed under the bird feeders. POSSUMS. Those snarly, hissy, not-at-all-nice animals. They’re not cute (like the raccoon) and they’re not fun to watch and listen to (like the ducks), and I don’t want them in the backyard!  I took the photo of the two of them and then raised the window to see if I could get a closeup. One ambled under the screen porch when the window went up, but the other one just sat there with his teeth bared. I haven’t seen them since, and I hope not to. (What were they doing out in the morning, anyway? I thought possums were night animals?) It appears that it is time to board up the space under the porch, don’t you think?

This month is birthday month at our house. Yesterday was Web Guy’s birthday (Happy Birthday again, Danny!) and Monday was my mom’s birthday (Happy Birthday again, Mom!). We celebrated Web Guy’s birthday in Terre Haute on Sunday (along with celebrating Mother’s Day with them). It was really fun to see both of our kids and spend a couple of hours with them. Totally worth the 3 hour drive each way to get there. I’m so glad that they were up for it! On Monday night, we went out for dinner to celebrate my mom’s birthday. See that Creme Brulee she has? It was divine.

Sheri whothinksasheep(orthree)inthebackyardmightjustfitinafterall