We always love it when people bring their finished projects into the shop. (Well, mostly we love it. Usually I then get a bad case of, “Oh, I need to knit that!” and then find myself perusing yarn choices later in the day. But I guess that’s my own problem…) Here are a few that we’ve seen lately. Thanks to all of you for sharing!

Christie’s Whippoorwill (done in Dream in Color Smooshy in Blue Sage and Gothic Rose):

Pattie’s Little Iris (done in Madelinetosh Sock):

Sunday’s beautiful red shawl with beads (done for her sister in law, and I didn’t write down the pattern! Edit – it’s Gwendolyn. Thanks, Katrina!):

Roberta’s Summer Flies Shawl (done in Cascade’s Ultra Pima DK):

Jason’s latest creation – a jellyfish (which Herman got to borrow for the duration of Knit Night):

And one more photo to share with you. Christienne’s clever husband ordered some fun cotton yarn and supplies from us, to make her a special bouquet to celebrate their 2nd Anniversary (the cotton anniversary). How cute is this?

That’s a guy who knows the phrase “Happy Wife, Happy Life!”.

Sheri luckytobemarriedtosomeonewhoalsoknowsthatphrase!

This week in particular, it seems like we are surrounded by awesome colors in the Monday Update. I told Inventory Elf Roberta to just bar me from the back room where all the new stuff is. It’s safer that way. We just added in:

Dream in Color – A special one-time Merino/Alpaca sock blend that is 1) soft and yummy, 2) warm, and 3) gorgeous. You get 420 yards in this merino/alpaca/nylon blend, and it’s perfect for socks or one-skein shawls. (Shown here in the Sprinkler colorway.)

Dream in Color - Another special one-time offering in 4 oz. Silk/Merino laceweight. They had leftover skeins of the March Dream Club silk/merino lace and offered it to us. We snapped that right up!  We have it dyed up in pastels (great for summer shawls) and deeper colors (great for fall and winter shawls). We also have permission to offer you a copy of the popular Vostok Shawl pattern with purchase, so leave us an order note if you’d like us to email you the copy. It’s the pattern that went with the March Dream Club yarn, so some of you already have it. With 1100 yards in this skein, you have a lot of pattern options. (Shown here in the Passion colorway.)

Shalimar Yarns - I’ve often coveted the many beautiful colors of this yarn (especially their fun Newsprint colorway), but when I picked up a skein of their Breathless yarn, I knew we had to have it here. This fingering weight yarn comes 420 yds. to the skein and is 75% Superwash Merino, 15% Cashmere, and 15% Silk. It would be awesome for socks, but I think even nicer for shawls and scarves so you can keep it up close and around your neck and shoulders. (Shown here in Byzantine.)

Kauni - We have a big re-stock on the solids and the multi-colors, just in time to jump into a Wingspan, or a Hitchhiker, or a Citron. The multi-color skeins are sold by weight – anywhere from 120-180 gr. per ball. As always, we re-weigh the skeins and sell them at their actual weight. Some of the skeins seem to come in under the actual weight shown on the label and we don’t want you to be shorted. I did notice that some of the labels now say “150 gr. +/- 10 gr. and that seems like a big difference, don’t you think? We’ll keep weighing them for you. (Shown here in the EZ colorway.)

Spud and Chloe – Re-stocks in all Fine, Sweater and Outer colors. Someone came in the shop last week to get yarn for a Delancey Cardigan. Wouldn’t this look great in Spud & Chloe Sweater?

Blue Sky Alpacas – Re-stocks in Worsted Hand Dyes, Alpaca Silk and Skinny Cotton.

ChiaoGoo Needles – we added in circulars in the 16″ length.

Mill Hill Beads – re-stocked. This would be a great time to get a skein of the new DC Alpaca or DC Lace special bases and some beads to go with it.

We’re looking forward to sending out lots of color to you tomorrow!

Sheri stillpluggingawayonSothiabutonthelastsectionoftheruffle

There were a few questions about my striping sock from Wednesday’s post, that I wanted to answer. Kathy said, “Where are the yellow combos?” And Sarah, also a fan of yellow, agreed. They’re right – I missed yellows! I pulled a couple of yellows to photo for you. What do you think? Lemon, Ice and Colonial Blue on the left, Iron, Celery and Butter on the right (Kathy’s combo, which I loved).

Striping was the next question.

Molly said, “Your stripes look perfectly straight … care to share your jogless stripe in the round method?” Well first of all, I showed you the prettiest side. Of course. But the way I do a “fairly jogless” stripe (emphasis on the fairly), is that when I’m switching to a new color, I knit the first stitch on that new-color row with both the old AND the new color. So if I’m going from dark brown to blue, the first stitch on the first blue row is knit with brown and blue held together. Then on the next time around, (the second row) I knit those two stitches together to turn it back into one stitch. Here’s a photo of a section by the toe where I did brown to blue to tan to blue to brown. It works pretty well.

Diane asked, “Do you carry your colors down the sock inside somewhere or do you go through weaving in all those ends when they are complete?” and Dr. Jackie asked the same thing, a few comments later.

For this sock, I carried the yarn inside the sock (catching it every 4 rows) and I don’t like how it looks. On the next one, I’m going to carry the yarn in the small sections (blue to tan to blue) but weave in the rest each time. Actually, I learned a quick way to weave in ends from a Lucy Neatby class I took a couple of years ago.

1.Hold the tail of the old color off to the left and your working yarn (new color) as normal. (In the case of the photos below – I’m weaving in a tail from my short-row toe.) You’ll be knitting the working yarn – the one attached to the ball -  as normal, but positioning your right needle over and under the tail you’re weaving in, as you knit down the row.

2. On the first stitch, duck your right needle under the tail and catch the working yarn to make your stitch as normal. (See photo, below.) The yarn going off to the left is my tail that I’m weaving in. The yarn going straight up is my working yarn (attached to the ball).

3. On the next stitch of the row, pop your right needle over the tail and catch the working yarn to make your stitch as normal. (See right photo, below.)

4. Repeat #2 & 3 a few more times and then pull the tail slightly to tighten it up a bit. Cut off an extra tail.

Does anyone else have jogless stripes or weaving tips to share?

Sheri thisblueisthetoeofmyNorwegianRosesocks!

We have a lot of fun working here – we really do. (And can you even call it “work” when it involves so much yarn??) So I *think* that this sign was left on Loopy in jest, yesterday. There are some Sneak Ups that stretch everyone, and these awesome Elves busted their tails this week to get all of your orders out to you in a timely fashion. It cracked me up to walk by Loopy one day to see this “Free the Elves!” apron tied around his neck.

Once again I’m a happy mom, as I have both kids under one roof again. I just sleep better at night, knowing their bedrooms are full – know what I mean? (Well – those of you who have had kids go off to college or out on their own know exactly what I mean!) College Guy came home last night. I know he will need a few days to catch up on post-finals sleep, but then I have a list for him. (Shhh – don’t tell him. He thinks he’s home on break.) I just re-read that and realized that many of you will email or leave blog comments telling me to “let him have a nice relaxing break” and trust me, I will. I’m just kidding about the list. (sort of).

The Baby Monkey Socks have almost returned! We had a bit of a glitch (called “transferring everything from an old computer to a new computer and losing some of the important things in the process.” AKA “transferring things from old to new and some idiot the computer owner not being able to find everything she needs on the new computer.” AKA “Web Guy is not here to find it when I need it.” FPS.) I have the pattern back and we’re working on formatting it to get up on the Free Patterns link asap. I’m so sorry for the wait. We also have a wonderful new fingerless mitts pattern for children that Monica (of “Monica Knits” pattern fame) has given to us out of the kindness of her heart. So we’ll be getting that up as well.

Update on other things that you have been asking about:
- When will you have more Fiesta Boomerang and Baby Boom? They been backordered since the end of September, but we do anticipate getting our order in late this month and will be fully re-stocked.
- When will you have more Sock Blockers? They are never out of stock for TOO long because WH makes them and can get them turned around pretty quickly for us. So if you’re waiting for a particular size/style and want to know when we’ll have them again, it’s always “soon”.
- How does the Noro feel? Softer than regular Noro, not as soft as most of our sock yarns. How does it feel after washing? I’ve heard it softens up a lot and when you put the socks on your feet, they feel great.
- When is the roving coming in? We have that amazing alpaca roving from Alpaca With a Twist now. We also have our first Sakina Needles shipment on the way, and more coming from Tempted and … a couple of others. It is so fun to have roving in the shop!
- Do you have the new Dream in Color colorways and lace yarn yet? No. Our order of Classy came in yesterday, but we’re still waiting on the rest. We will get it up asap when it arrives, but it might not be next week after all. We’ll keep you posted.
- Are you going to be shipping the week after Christmas, or are you taking that week off? We’ll be here and we’ll be shipping. We also have another great sale opportunity for you from Cherry Tree Hill in their DK Sock Yarn (again, with special limited edition colors, only available here. Cheryl at CTH said, “Tell them we’re setting those dyes aside just for The Loopy Ewe and your customers!”) I have another idea that I’m cooking up, too. We’ll see if we can get both of those things ready for you the week after Christmas. If not, then the first week in January.
- Did my husband/mom/dad/grandparents/aunt/uncle/kids/best friend buy me things from my Wish List? Or a Gift Certificate to The Loopy Ewe? We’ll never tell. (You didn’t really think we would, did you?) But the answer to most of you is probably yes, as there has been a lot of holiday shopping going on.

I think that’s it for questions I keep hearing lately. Did I miss any?

My plans for the weekend? Working on some Noro socks so that I can show you a sample on Monday’s blog. (Plus watching movies and hanging out with my family. I love nights like that. And we’re due to get bad weather, so that makes staying in even more fun.) Your plans for the weekend?

Sheri drinkinghotchocolateasItype.See?NoteverydayisaPeppermintMochaday….

Isn’t this a great sign? On days like today, it’s definitely “Send in the Elves!” day! We love our Loopy Elves here and even on busy days, we have a lot of fun. (Chocolate and Starbucks helps, too.) We did do a Sneak Up last night, and I did send out the Loopy Groupie email. For some reason, not everyone received it and we are looking into that. Some of you might find it in your spam folders, but others must still be floating in cyberspace or lost in the same place that our second case of Wollmeise seems to have disappeared into. Hopefully we’ll have it all figured out before the next Sneak Up. We’re working on it.

I thought today would be a good day to answer questions that I keep getting. (If you know all the answers, you can skip today’s blog and you get an “A”. Come back on Friday!)

“Do the current Sock Club members get to renew automatically, or do they go into the lottery with everyone else?”

I’m sorry for not making that clear. Yes, current sock club members get to renew automatically. You all have been great to work with and we’d love to have you again. I’ll let you know when we’re ready to take your renewals. (There will also be plenty of new spots, as we’re increasing the numbers for next year.)

“Do you know the cost of next year’s Sock Club and how that will work?”

We’re keeping it the same price as this year – $33 plus shipping. For that, you will receive the limited edition yarn dyed up just for the sock club (we use a different dyer or yarn company each time), and a pattern written especially for that yarn. You’ll also get different fun things in each shipment. Most of the yarns are $24 or $25, the patterns are $5, so you’re only paying $3 or $4 for the “something fun”. Those of you in this year’s Sock Club know that the value of these extras has been much more than that. We know you like those surprises, and we have fun finding them for you! Also, next year we will do 5 shipments and they’ll come every other month, starting in March.

“I placed an order last night and another one first thing this morning – can you ship them together?”

We always check your account as we’re doing the shipping labels, because, honestly, this happens a lot. (And we totally understand that!) If you have two or more orders in with us, we will definitely send them together and save you shipping (or delete the shipping if the combined total is over $75.)

“I’m just ordering patterns and the website charged me $5.95 for that. I don’t think I should have to pay that.”

We don’t think so either. When you have just ordered patterns, we ship them to you in an envelope and we go in and change the shipping amount for you. Depending on how many you order, the cost is usually $1-3. When you get your email that says your order has shipped, you can log in to your Loopy account and see how much the shipping ended up being.

“I am an international customer – does it really cost that much to ship to me?”

It depends on where you live. The website will charge you the default rate, but if it’s less than that, we change the amount to save you money. The minimum international rate is $5. The maximum rate for Canada is $10 and all other countries is $16. That means if your shipping goes under those amounts, we save you the money, and if it goes over those amounts, we pay the difference.

“I really really really love you guys. Can you save a skein of Wollmeise for me? Pretty please?? You’re my favorite shop!!”

We love those emails! They make us smile! They make us feel good! They make us use exclamation points excessively!!! (sorry. ahem.) But, unfortunately, they don’t convince us to save a certain yarn for you. We’d love to be able to do that, but of course it’d get way out of hand. We really are sorry that we can’t let you reserve yarn. It would be awfully handy if we could.

“When are you getting more __________ in stock?” (You can pretty much fill in the blank with anything.)

Almost everything here is always on order. Most of our yarn lines and indie dyers are on auto-order, meaning we have revolving orders in with them all the time, as often as they can do them for us. When they get done with one, they are usually already working on the next one. They’re awesome. So if you’re wondering when something is coming in, do feel free to email and ask, but just know that most likely it’s “soon”!

“I really want to come to your Loopy Spring Fling Sock Retreat. Do you have dates yet?”

We’re still working out the details (we have fun things planned!) but the weekend I’m planning for – barring any hotel issues, which still need to be worked out – is April 25-27. Second choice is April 18-20, but we’re trying for our first choice.

“I found a new sock yarn that I love. Can you get it at The Loopy Ewe?”

We’d love to hear about it and we’ll definitely look into it. Email us.

“What new things will you be getting in?”

Ohhhh, there are a lot. We’ll fill you as they each get closer to being here. There is some really great stuff on order!

“Have you bought a wheel yet???”

No. But I do plan to try some out this weekend and then make some decisions. Which of course means that roving for sale at The Loopy Ewe is not far behind…….

Sheri Friday’sblogwillhaveourNovembercontestANDtheamazingpumpkindessertrecipe!