Too many things going on to form a coherent post today. So, I’m giving you snippets of information as they run through my head. (That’s scarey, isn’t it?)

I am heading out of town today, and will be gone through Sunday. That means no post on Friday, and I will miss that. That also means that Knitting Daughter and Wonder Husband will be filling all orders that come in on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. (be still my beating heart.) They’re saving Saturday and Sunday orders for me to fill when I get home. Now, they have been well-trained to do this. I have left lists and instructions, and they are intelligent. I have every reason to believe that this will go just fine. Really. It’s just that I’m a bit picky about everything that goes out of here I want to make sure it all arrives to you correctly, safe and sound. So, they’re doing it together and double checking each other. I’m counting on them to do a great job. I know they’ll have fun sending packages out to you (and will no doubt proudly relay their efforts to me on a daily basis.) They were just thrilled to pieces about me wanting to take an action shot for the blog. Thrilled, I tell you.

Did I mention to you that Knitting Daughter has now secured a job at Starbucks? This is what comes home to our house every single week – a free pound of coffee. (One of the many benefits of working at Starbucks.) She is having a great time working there. After 14+ years of being around Wonder Husband (aka Wonder Dad) and I with our home-based businesses, her customer service is second to none. I always told her that would come in handy some day!

Speaking of coffee, I thought I’d share a great gift idea with you. My friend Monica gave me a set of these coffee syrup dispensers one Christmas, and we have used them ever since. You can buy these jars at kitchen stores, and you can buy the coffee syrups at World Market (or coffee places). It’s easy to make up personalized labels on your computer. That way, you can keep all of the wonderful knitted items you’re making all for yourself and give coffee syrups to everyone on your holiday list instead.

While I’m gone – I thought I’d spice things up with another blog contest. You know that we have three GREAT yarn lines on order, and expected in any day. Well, actually I expect them any time between now and mid-October. So here is the contest – guess which yarn shipment will arrive first – All Things Heather? Sweet Georgia? Yarn Pirate? (I just listed those in alphabetical order, so there are no hints in the sequencing.) And secondly, guess which day between now and 10/15 they will arrive. List your yarn and date guess in the comments section, and the winner will receive a free skein of whatever company came in first. (If there are multiple correct answers, I’ll draw a name.) And yes, of course I will let you pick exactly which colorway you’d like!

Have a great rest of the week – and please do give these two characters some orders to fill. They’ll be so proud of themselves and you already know you’ll love the wonderful yarns that you pick out. I will be working on knitting under the table, during my meetings when I can fit it in between important meetings.

Sheri sadthatIcannolongerknitontheplaneguessI’llhavetoread

I have threes on the brain. Why? Because I finished up THREE of my WOOPs!!! (see – three exclamation points. Threes on the brain.) That’s right – my WOOPs list from last week is down by three projects and I’m celebrating. Remember – College Boy went back to school over the weekend. Knitting is therapy. My WOOPs have benefitted. So I think we ought to have a contest. You try to decide which three projects I finished out of the list in this blog entry, and I will award a prize to the one who guesses right (or gets closest. If more than one person guesses right, I’ll draw a name from the list.) If you win, you tell me your favorite color, and I will pick out a wonderful skein of yarn that has your favorite color in it, and send it to you so that it can become a WOOPs for you for your next pair of socks. I’ll pick a winner on Monday of next week and will post pictures of the completed WOOPs.

Going along with today’s topic, I thought I’d fill you in on a few other “threes” in my life.

Here are three knitting pattern purchases that I regret. I don’t regret the first copy. It’s that duplicate copy of each one that I’m regretting. Keep in mind, this happened because I have way too many books and magazines about knitting had had too much caffeine and my brain was running faster than was safe and productive. The book is almost understandable, right? I could have bought one copy last summer, and another one this summer without realizing that I already had this one. Ages and ages apart. But buying two of the same magazine? The same issue? I can’t even believe that I’d admit that to you.

I once gave my husband two of the same framed photos for Christmas. Same caffeine problem. I had copies made of a picture that I loved, bought a frame, wrapped it up (easily a month early. That is part of the problem. The lesson there – do not be efficient and get your shopping/wrapping done early. Either that, or pay attention. I’m not sure which.) When I came across another copy of the picture right before Christmas, I thought, “Hmm. I could’ve sworn that I had framed that already. Oh well.” I went off to Target for a frame and then I wrapped that one up. In my slight defense, I had also framed and wrapped that same picture for both sets of grandparents, so there were multiple framing/wrapping situations for that same picture. I had one left over and figured it must be Paul’s. (Does that help explain my loopiness?) On Christmas morning, he opened one, loved it, opened a few more gifts in between, then opened another. Same picture. Different frame. To show you how well-matched we are – he had to sit and think about it for a minute. “Didn’t I already open this picture? Or did I just see this photo in our scrapbook already? Seems familiar….” But I digress. Back to my knitting pattern purchases – I could just tell you that I liked these so much that I bought double of them. (I also could admit to you that I found two of the same issue of Vogue Knitting in my files just now. Three double-buys is just ridiculous a little over the top, but if I admit to doing this a fourth time, well that’s just plain stupid loopy. No doubt about it.)

Three yarn purchases that I regret. What is the purple-pink string blob? Well, it was supposed to be one of those ruffle scarves. I downloaded the pattern, purchased the exact yarn that it called for, and then knit it exactly like I was supposed to. I hate it. It’s too short, it’s itchy, and it’s too hairy to even see that it’s ruffled. Instead, it just looks like a big long string of ….. blob. I have hidden the yarn label, so as not to cast undue blame on the yarn. I know it must’ve been the goofy yarn and the ridiculous pattern my fault. I think enough time has passed since knitting it, that I can now toss it without undue sadness.

Another scarf bomb – the blue and the white. I have artfully arranged it into “Baseball on a Nest” for your viewing pleasure. I thought they might be kind of cute knit up together – the blue Squiggle and the white bobble-y thing. I was really wrong. I frogged it after 10 rows. It looked silly. Now what do I do with the yarn?

The third yarn – also for a scarf – was supposed to knit up into a one skein eyelet scarf of some kind. This was before I knew how to do yarnovers very well at all. I kept frogging it, thinking my YO’s were wrong. The yarn started breaking from all the frogging, I started crying yelling, and I stuffed it inside a ziploc bag and buried it deep in the stash. Maybe I’ll try it again someday.

Interesting that all of my yarn regrets were for scarves. I have never bought a sock yarn that I regretted. (Although someday I may regret how many sock yarns I have in my Personal Sock Buffet. But not yet.)

Ending on a happy note – here are the next three yarns that will be turned into socks at my house. The one on the right – Claudia Hand Painted in Blue Terra Cotta. There are great spring colors in this colorway, and I love that Claudia yarn is “springy” in texture. The green/blue/tan ones is Lorna’s Laces in Baltic Sea. This one seems like a wonderful winter sock. I love the greens in there. The purple and pink one on the bottom? It’s a new yarn line that I just ordered for us. Anyone care to guess what it is? I haven’t even added it to the “Coming Soon” section on our homepage, so you won’t get any clues there. I have been having fun playing with this yarn, and can’t wait to start a sock out of it. (Once again, there are several colorways coming that I think I will have to have for myself. Why does that always happen? I’m going to need more hours in my day to get all of this sock knitting done. Where does one sign up for more hours in the day?) This new line should be here by mid-October, if not before.

Sheri don’tforgettoweighinonyourthreeWOOPsguessesforachancetowinfreesockyarn!

There are a lot of things that have gone undone in the past few months, because I was just having too much fun doing Loopy things, getting ready for our opening. I wish I was the kind of person who loved working in the garden, but I’m not. I plant things in May because I like the look of flowers and growing vegetables, not because I love the process. (Do you think there are any gardeners out there who would work in exchange for yarn?) This May, I was too busy ordering yarns and contacting people to do anything in the yard. Here is the sad evidence. These pots, are supposed to be filled with bright flowers and positioned on either side of my front porch. They are tucked behind the columns in shame.

This is my vegetable garden where I usually plant tomatoes and peppers and green beans. This year, I am raising weeds. I saw a sign while out shopping today that said: “Garden of Weeden”. I really should’ve bought it and stuck it in my garden small plot of dirt and weeds.

Despite my complete lack of effort in planting, look what popped up spontaneously in one pot out on the porch steps. It makes me smile just because it was feisty enough to survive winter in the seed-state, and grow all on its own once warm weather hit. I hope it comes back next year.

I wish I could say this was on my porch. It is a picture I took in Colorado this summer, where the weather is cool and gorgeous all the time, and the flowers all look like this. I took about a dozen flower pictures. Maybe I could be a gardener if I lived in a different climate. At any rate, I thought a nice picture of flowers would perk this entry up a bit.

Along the lines of “so much I’d rather be doing than working outside in a garden in 100+ weather”, I started another pair of socks. Interestingly, I have come up with my own way of avoiding Second Sock Syndrome. (The one where you don’t want to do the second sock because you already know how the yarn knits up, as shown in the first sock you just finished.) I do one sock, then go on to another sock with a different yarn, and maybe even a third sock – and then I come back to the first one and knit the twin, move on to the second and do the twin, and then hit the third and knit the twin. This seems to work well for me. I still know how the yarn is going to look knit up, but I’m not so bored with using the same colors again when I’ve worked with others in between.

I finished one sock in Cherry Tree Hill, Java (cuff done in Wildhorse Farm Designs Switchback Socks). I pulled a skein of Java out when I was unpacking all of the Cherry Tree colors, just because I thought the browns and chocolates in there were so pretty. Now I have started a new sock in Claudia Hand Painted, Donna’s Favorite. I love this springy yarn and the colors in this skein are gorgeous. (It’s also nice to be knitting on size 3 needles, after several pairs of socks on 1′s. These will go together quickly. Maybe I can discipline myself to finish both socks in sequence this time, instead of going back to do a twin of something else. We’ll see.) Zoe wanted to be in this photo, too.

Tomorrow I am off to MN for a long weekend. I have held off officially announcing The Loopy Ewe opening until after I return, because quick shipping and great customer service is so important to us. I didn’t want anyone to order while I was gone and have to wait a few days for their package to be mailed. If you’re like me, you want it the very next day! And while we can’t promise that (unless you live here in St. Louis with me), we can promise that your order will go out within 24-48 hours, M-F. (Truthfully – 99% will go out within 24 hours, but I figured I should give us a LITTLE fudge factor, just in case.) Fudge. That’s what Cherry Tree Hill Java yarn reminds me of.

Sheri nextIwanttostartapairofsocksoutofLorna’sLacesBalticSea.justtoomanychoices

Welcome to my Loopy Life! (Loopy as in making lots of loops via knitting – not meaning craziness. But come to think of it, that probably fits some days as well….) It has been a lot of fun putting this business together. We started with the idea way back in January, and did a lot of research and praying about it. Should we do it? Should we not? Aren’t our lives busy enough? But our love of knitting and our entrepreneurial spirits won out and here you have it – The Loopy Ewe. We’re excited about it and hope you grow to love it as much as we do.

Here we are – that’s my graphic designer husband Paul on the end – he was in charge of coming up with our Loopy logo (the ewe with the red socks) and he has been putting in double time, photographing the yarns and inventory. (He also gets SO much credit for attending the needlework market with me in June, so that he could get a real feel for this new business of ours. He says once in attendance was enough for him. All that fiber, you know.) Danny is next – our college son who did the whole website design, construction, etc. (And my own personal emergency computer-aid person.) He is amazing. I don’t know how he does it. I’m next, wearing the green scarf with yarn from Austria that my daughter finished knitting the day before. I have been in charge of the researching, planning, projecting, ordering, communicating, organizing, and writing. Last in line is our daughter Julia, who is in high school. She is my favorite knitting companion, and has done all kinds of things to help with getting our business up and running. She is the “go to” girl, for sure and she always says “sure!” when we ask for help. Such a sweetheart. So, you can see that this really is a family business, and a labor of love.

Not everyone knows what a ewe is. Isn’t that weird? I called to get phone and fax lines installed in May. I told the gal the business name at the beginning of the call, and spelled “Ewe” out to her. (Because even my daughter thought we were naming it “The Loopy YOU” until she saw it on paper.) At the end of the 10 minute call, the phone gal said, “Ok – to recap – we have a phone line and a fax line going in for you under the name The Loopy ooo-ee.” OOO-EE? Sigh. Obviously not a knitter. I didn’t even bother correcting her. If you’re reading this, you probably totally get the name. Come back often, as I’ll be sharing my loopy life via the blog, and we’ll be adding new yarns, products, tips, and other fun stuff every single week. Our priority is top customer service and inspiring you to find a little extra time in your day for your knitting. Let us know how we do.

Don’t forget to enter our Grand Opening Contest! Send me an email (sheri at theloopyewe.com) with the answers to our six quick questions, and you’ll be entered to win a $75 gift certificate to The Loopy Ewe. We’ll do the drawing on August 15th and will notify YOU if you win! Tell your friends, so that they can enter, too. (Check out our “tell a friend” deal. From now until the end of the year, if you refer a friend to The Loopy Ewe and they place an order with your name as their referral, you will get a $5 Loopy Credit as our thank you!)

Sheri itwasalsofunexplainingthenametomyaccountantandlawyer.notknitterseither.obviously.