The movers are busily moving all of our yarn and shelves to the new Loopy home today. We spent the weekend packing up the yarn and trying to move around all of the boxes and bags that kept accumulating in the dining room, hallway, and basement. I think the whole house will give a sigh of relief when the new place has taken all of this in! Here is a picture of where we’re going. Never fear, we will soon have the whole doggone place turned “Loopy” by the end of the week. Right now it just looks boring. In typical moving-day-Murphy’s-Law, it’s supposed to rain all day. So far, so good, but it’s getting cloudy. Good thing the yarn is bagged and protected.

In order to make my week a bit more complicated (and I seem to be good at that), we got a new kitten over the weekend. (Honestly, WH looked at me as if I might have lost a few marbles when I talked to him about it. Why would I do that during a week that is sure to be our most packed and overwhelming week in a long time? Um …. because we took one look at her and fell in love with her? Because I want Zoe to have a buddy to hang around with, now that I’ll be gone during the day? Because we needed a second cat? Because I like to stir things up? I can come up with a whole list of reasons. He knows this about me. He gave up and said yes.) So here she is - sweet little Gracie. Is she not just the cutest thing? She is soft and fluffy and extremely affectionate. She’s residing in the guest room until it’s time for her to meet Zoe. However, they have been playing “pawsie” under the door and meowing at each other, so I think it will go well. When you see a photo of the two of them together in the blog, you will know we have succeeded.

Onward with the move. I hope you all have a great week!

Sheri doingmybesttobegoodandnotaddanyothercomplicationstotheweekforWH’ssake

(Loopy guest edits the blog today to talk about his fabulous summer vacation.)

Oh the places I’ve seen! I was a bit hesitant when the Loopy people sent me out to vacation around the world over the past few months. Things are pretty nice and cozy in The Loopy Room, so I wasn’t sure how I’d like having a summer off to relax and play. I’ve decided that I like it a lot. I went so many places and met so many people.

First the people. Of course my favorite part was just vacationing with all of YOU. No wonder the Loopy People like you all so much. You’re fun! I met famous TV stars (here I am with Marlo Thomas and my friend Rosemary. I don’t think Marlo is a knitter, but she did a good job as “That Girl”, so I think she could be a knitter if she tried it. I think she thought I was cute. And of course I am.) I also met a lot of radio personalities (they may have talked about me on the radio. Or they may have talked about those of you who ran up and shoved me into their hands for a picture, like a crazy person. I’m not sure.) I also met many famous knitters. I like knitter’s a lot. I especially like sock knitters, so it was nice to meet Cat Bordhi in person. They call her “Cat” but she’s really a person. I couldn’t quite figure that out, but I guess you know who I mean. She was teaching a class at the TNNA Show this summer. I listened to a “Harlot” talk (which I thought was going to be a little scarey. Turns out she hates squirrels and I do, too, so I guess she’s ok after all.) I also golfed with Sergio at the US Open. He may not have known I was golfing with him necessarily, but I totally was. I’m a good golfer, as I can use all four feet when necessary. And what’s not to like about a game that is played on all of that delicious green grass? After we were done golfing, I went to collect my trophy.

I got to meet some of the cutest dang babies you have ever seen this summer. Most of the time I caught them sleeping, which I’m told is a very good thing. Sometimes maybe they’re not quite so dang cute? At least that’s what I have heard. I also met a lot of very nice, friendly family members on picnics, in parks, at baseball games, and all over the place. My buddy Hunter took me to his first day of school, and that was one of my favorite things. I had never been to school before. I’m not sure I need to go back. But I liked Hunter a lot. There were also a lot of other cute kids. One girl let me color with her. Or else she colored on me. I can’t remember. This girl wished that I had pretty blue eyes just like her, and I kinda wish I did, too. I was kept high and dry by this new friend, and rescued from the jaws of death by these buddies.

Some of you tried to give me a bit of culture. I visited the Sydney Opera House (which everyone needs to see at least once.) Dr. Jackie and James took me to hear the St. Louis Symphony. That started out good, but then they stuffed me into a bag for the concert and everything sounded a bit muffled. Next time I hope they buy me a front row seat. I also visited Wordsworth’s Grave (and had a moment of respectful silence there). I floated on a big boat in Sicily with Theresa, had a walk down Penny Lane in Liverpool, visited a sheep station in Australia, participated in an Irish wedding, took a peak peek at Denali, played in Kellie’s stash in New Zealand (she has a lot, but I’m sworn to secrecy), and even visited The White House. (Do you see George up there on the balcony? He was waiting for me to come in for dinner.) I particularly enjoyed catching Hamlet and Wicked - I love plays. And did you see that I was on hand for the unveiling of the last Harry Potter book? They had all of the books boxed and hidden under cover, but I pulled back a corner with my teeth, just so that I could say I saw it first. I haven’t read it yet. I’m afraid they might use “fleece” in some of their potions and I just don’t want to know. I also got to see a lot of yarn shops. I know I live in a yarn shop, but it’s always fun to visit someone else’s house shop. Mostly I had to hide in purses and knitting bags when we were in there. But I peeked.

There were a few scarey times. I went biking with Karen and her husband and I thought I’d pose on someone’s bike - just for the blog, you know - and I almost got tarred and feathered. Apparently it’s SO not cool to sit on someone else’s bike. But it felt cool. Getting past the scarey looking bouncer at the bar was a piece of cake after that. (Don’t let this photo fool you - he was as nice as could be and I think he is probably wearing handknit socks, although he wouldn’t admit it.) I loved the beach, but had another frightening encounter with this grumpy crab. He thought he might like to eat me, but then he decided I tasted like cardboard and left me alone on the sand. Whew. I was also a little scared of a cat named Sophie, until I remembered how much I like my own cat Zoe. I figured Sophie is probably just as nice underneath. I think I met a few cousins at some of the fiber festivals I went to.

I did manage to check in with some doctors during the summer. It’s always good to stay on top of your health. So I had an MRI to check out my spine (and they said it looked marvelous, even with all of the standing around I do all day long), I had all my teeth cleaned at the dentist, and I visited a mammogram machine just so that I could tell you to be sure to have your annual checkup. (As soon as this photo was done, I got the heck out of there. I’ve heard about that machine, and I want no part of it, let me tell you.) After all of those medical appointments, I needed some down time so I went tubing with Meg and her family in Michigan. They put me in a ziploc bag so that I wouldn’t get my fleece wet. Then I headed up to the cabin with Valerie in Canada. (Beautiful place up there. I particularly liked the cool weather, because the Loopy People kept complaining about the heat and humidity back in St. Louis all summer long.)

So as you can see, it was a summer FULL of a lot of fun. You can go over to my photo gallery to see all 140+ photos, because I did so many more cool things. The Loopy Lady says that I’ve talked about myself for long enough now, so I’ll end this. After you check out all of my photos, you can leave a comment and vote for:

- best “far away” place that I visited
- most interesting famous person that I met
- most unusual place that I visited
- most creative photo that I was in

Or you can leave a comment and just say hi.

The Loopy Lady says she’ll give prizes to the winners, and she’s going to draw an extra random winner from all of the submissions. She’s glad you all had fun with me (and I’m glad, too.) She also said that I can go again next summer - so where are we going next year??

Love, Loopy theworldwidetravelextraordinaire.Andohsohumble,too.

You probably noticed some Loopy postcards that were in some of the photos from the weekend. Here’s the one I took of my friend Janice, to prove that he went with us to Ohio. We have a special “Take Loopy on Vacation” contest that will go from now until September 1st. Here’s what the back of the postcard says:

“Loopy wants to see the world and meet new people this summer. Take him on vacation, or show him the sights in your hometown, or let him in on your family barbecue! Pose with this Loopy postcard in front of fun places and/or with interesting people, and then submit your photos to the “Loopy’s Summer Vacation” photo gallery at www.theloopyewe.com. On September 1st, we’ll award Loopy Gift Certificates for “farthest destination”, “most famous person that Loopy met” and a few other fun categories (as well as general drawings from all submission.) We can’t wait to see where you take Loopy this summer and we hope you have fun with him!”

We will include a Loopy postcard with orders starting this week, in case you’d like to participate in the summer fun! You can pose with the postcard, or set him up somewhere by himself. Let your kids in on the picture, or prop him up by your dog. (He loves dogs and cats. He has to.) I’m hoping that Loopy gets to all 50 states and all of the countries that we have shipped to. He ought to be well-traveled by summer’s end. (I only wish I could come with him as part of the deal.) As you can see from the gallery, so far he has been to the TNNA Market in Columbus and already found some pretty fun people to pose with! Where will he be found next?

Sheri I’mtakingLoopytoColoradoinafewweeksIhopehelikesthemountains!

I got contacts today. First time ever. But they’re weird ones. I have “perfect, 20/20 long distance vision”, according to the eye doctor, but I have found that more and more I am reaching for reading glasses when doing things close up. (Like knitting, sometimes. And reading.) I used to think it was hilarious when “older” people had to hold things at arms length to read them (because that SO does not make sense) and now I’m one of them. So these contacts have reading magnification in the bottom of the contact and are clear on the top. I suppose I’ll get used to them, but right now you all seem a bit blurry to me. I’m anxious to try knitting with them - maybe tonight. (I know - midweek knitting! WOOT! I told you it was one of my summer goals.)

Speaking of summer goals, I saw a list on someone’s blog about the things they wanted to get knitted up this summer and it got me to thinking about what I wanted to knit up over the next few months. So here is my list of wishes:

- pairs to all of my twinless socks (and I believe there might be 15 or so. sigh.)

- finish my Sea Silk shawl in the Nova Scotia colorway (because I’d also like to do something in the Aegean Sea Silk and the Melon Sea Silk. And I love Schaefer Andrea, so I set aside a skein of Empress Wu Zhao, and I also like Helen’s Laces a lot, and so have a skein of Vera set aside in that. Then of course there’s an amazing skein that Susie at Perchance to Knit sent me, but I can’t show that to you or you’ll want it. I’ll wait until we have it in stock to tease you like that. I really really like knitting lace. Almost as much as socks.) Lastly, I’d like a cashmere scarf out of this Jester colorway.

- work on a short-sleeved sweater that I started last year. (last year. brother.) It would be nice for fall, I think.

- and knit up new socks. Here are the yarns that are calling to me most loudly from my own stash. (There’s more in the stash, but these are the first ones I’d knit up this summer if I had unlimited knitting time.)

	Perchance to Knit (special colorway called “Sheri Baby” from Susie) J-Knits New Mexico Woolly Boully Brooklyn Candy The Knittery Earth sKNITches Syncopation Collegiate Zen String Bart & Louise (this just arrived today and I have been waiting for my own skein of Bart & Louise! It will be up in the next Sneak Up.)
	Fleece Artist Sea Wool Pinata sKNITches Kettle Drum Thunderclap Gypsy Knits BFL Merry Go Round Yarntini Cherry Cordial Perchance to Knit Primarily
	Urban GypZ Twisted Curry with Raisins (new indie dyer to us, coming soon!) Seacoast Panda Pheasant Cider Moon Casual Friday Opal Rainforest Toucan Regia Stretch Toronto
	Yarn Pirate Loopy BluesSeacoast Bee Balm Opal Neon 1937 Yarn Pirate BFL (special colorway from Georgia called “Zoe”) Posh Tweed Coat Claudia Blue Terra Cotta Claudia Sante Fe The Knittery Moonlight

So how much of my summer knitting list do you think I’ll get done? (Did I mention that I need to find more time in my day/week for knitting?) What’s on your list for the summer?

No blog on Friday - I’ll be winging my way to the TNNA Market in Ohio.  I’ll let you know all about it next week when I’m back!

Sheri andwillIevergetusedtotheseforeignobjectsinmyeyes?

As promised, here is a photo of what went into our Summer Edition of the Sock Club. I had to laugh about the Kool-Aid. Obviously I am not a hand-dyer, because a few of you emailed to say you were momentarily alarmed to see Kool-Aid in there, thinking you’d have to dye your own yarn! Kool-Aid means “dyeing” to many, but to me it means “summer” - especially in the lemonade variety. So that was just a fun “summer” type addition to a summer package - not meant to make you work on yarn dyeing! Heather, from All Things Heather, did all of the dyeing for us. A perfect summer colorway for the Sock Club - Skinny Dipping. (A few of you have mentioned not wanting to use the cute little sheep soap so that you can save it, but the gals over at The Soap Plantation promise that if you use it, you can always hop over to their website to get more. We will also have that same “Lemon Loopy Soap” available here at The Loopy Ewe, soon. It makes a fun tuck-in gift for secret pals and knitting friends.) Thanks for all of your wonderful comments about our first venture into the sock club. I’m so glad you liked it. I already have the fall yarn here and Lisa is already working on the pattern and …. well, the fun little extra gift is also being worked on. So we’re already busy with the next installment for you.

I keep getting emails asking for a spot in the club. Unfortunately, we’re completely full for this year. Of course we’ll do it again next year and I’ll keep you posted on sign-ups via the blog and monthly customer email. However, in the meantime, I’m working on something fun to celebrate our one year anniversary in August. It’s not a Sock Club, but it will be a special limited edition offering for you that I think is going to be a lot of fun. So, there are still special things that you can be a part of.

We put up the Claudia Hand-Painted Sport Shorts over the weekend, as well as re-stocking the Wildhorse Farm patterns, adding in more lace patterns from Heartstrings, and adding in Miriam Felton’s amazing lace patterns. Next week we have a lot of yarn to go up. A LOT. We’ll see how much of it can be photo-ed in time. (We’ll also see if my shipping boxes arrive from the Post Office. Suddenly we are short shipping boxes - aack!! I’m not quite sure how that happened. And it takes forever to get them in once I order them. That’s about all I want to say about the Post Office today. I’m still not happy with them over price increases this go-round. Jeez.)

College Guy/Web Guy loved reading all of your birthday greetings - thank you so much! (I told him he ought to put all of your wonderful comments as references on his resume - ha!) Someone suggested that he can’t be College Boy anymore, now that he’s 20 - and you’re right. But College Man sounds too formal. So he’ll have to be College Guy in addition to being Web Guy. It was funny to read that several of you have daughters that turned 20 on Saturday, too.

Off to unpack more boxes of yarn that arrived today. I will have to hide it from WH. His photo-list is already too long. (Psst - I just put up more Crystal Palace Cotton Panda - woohoo!  I have 2 more new colors to add in later tonight or tomorrow - Circus and Fruit Salad.  We also have the other 6 new colors and re-stocking of everything else due to arrive any minute as well. I’ll put it up as it comes in.  I’m hoping another case or two or three will arrive tomorrow. I love this yarn.)

Sheri KnittingDaughtergaveme4moviesforMother’sDay soguesswhatwedidallafternoonandeveningyesterday?

I had to look up how to spell idiosyncrasies - and it still doesn’t look right, but my Webster’s says it is. More on that in a moment…..

I’ve had a great time reading all of your knitting tips! I’m pulling out some of my pretty crystal vases and using them for needles. (And I loved the tip about using your first spinning bits for the bottom of it. Except that I’m avoiding spinning for as long as possible. I’m afraid that I will love it and there is no time in the day for it now.) I like that the tips ranged from actual technique tips, to organizing tips, to …. well, pretty much all over the board. Keep adding to them. And I would love for some of you to take photos of your storage/organizing systems for our “Knitting Nooks & Storage Ideas” gallery. That would be fun. Several of you commented on the fact that you write everything down in a notebook. That’s exactly where the idea for Loopy’s Knit Notes for Socks came from. I was writing things down and just wanted a nicer little book with fill-in-the-blanks on part of the page so that I wasn’t re-writing the same things over and over. Of course there is plenty of space that is blank as well, for adding any other details. Thank you for all of your great tips - I knew you’d rise to the challenge!

Today’s topic - Search Engines. I was perusing the list of things that people had typed into Search Engines (like G**gle) that brought them to The Loopy Ewe. It shows what the word or phrase was, and how many people, using that phrase, have then clicked on The Loopy Ewe and come for a visit to the website. So - there is something on the website or in the blog that makes the search engine think that THIS is a viable option for what they are looking for. Here are just a few that I jotted down. Some are understandable, and some just left me scratching my head:

- “how to put perm rods in your husband’s hair”

- “loopy people photos”

- “How much is too much front loading washing machines”

- “How many shots in a venti Starbucks”

- “Ugly foot contest”

- “Grey wool birkenstock clog”

- “Chocolate covered strawberies longevity”

- “Purchase 12 silver bed and bathroom door knobs”

- “What pan size do you use for St. Louis Gooey Butter Cake”

- “Vera Bradley recipes corn salad”

- “martha frank”

- “life with loopy”

- “college fun movie”

- “for what did they eat colonial peanut butter fudge”

Search Engines are handy, but they’re also a bit weird, aren’t they? Just makes you wonder. (And if any of the above have meanings that I don’t know, then I don’t want to know. Ok?)

In Loopy News - more yarn is expected this week and next (and we’ll put them up when we get them photo-ed). Yes, I have one more Sweet Georgia order coming in, but it’s small. About 1/3 the size of our regular Sweet Georgia orders. (The size and colors were up to Felicia this time, so I have no idea what colors we’re getting.) I don’t anticipate putting that up until the first or second week in March - it hasn’t arrived yet. I do have some fun accessories coming in that you’ll like, and I have two more indie-dyers that I made plans with this week, who will show up later in the spring. More Scarlet Fleece shipped yesterday, and more Apple Laine is on the way as well. We’re always watching out for you and your knitting needs!

Sheri Zoehasdecidedthatthecomputergivesoffwarmth&sheneedstositrightinfrontofit