Happy Monday to you, the first full week in December. Are you done with your holiday knitting yet? Is it time to treat yourself to something fun? We have some great options that went up in tonight’s Monday Update!

The Loopy Ewe Seasonings Series - We gave you a taste of this with our August Anniversary Kit, and now the whole line of color is ready. Each set comes with a 430 yard skein of the main color and a coordinating solid mini skein (approx. 100 yards). We call the mini skein the “seasoning”, because everything is better with a little seasoning, right? This line is perfect for socks with coordinating heels and toes, shawls with a coordinating edge (like Breath of Fresh Air, or pretty much any shawl where you want to pop the edging a bit), hats/gloves/cowls with coordinating edging, etc. We have 27 color combos for you to choose from, and will be adding more colors as we move forward with the line. We’re happy to have the talented people from Lorna’s Laces dyeing up this line for us on their Shepherd Sock yarn base, which is one of our favorites. Here are a few of the 27 colors:

Cinnamon Toast, Undercover Agent, Loopy Lodge

Vacation Day, Sweetgrass, Icicles

Loopy Cakes – Thanks for the fun feedback on our first offering of Loopy Cake sets! We have used some of your great suggestions for another round of Cake packages for you. Each Loopy Cake set has 6 different mini skeins (approx. 110 yds. per cake, 660+ yards per set) that coordinate around a theme. In addition to the Autumn, Baby, Rainbow and Steampunk sets that we still have available, we’re adding in these new tonight: Chocolate & Roses (luscious pinks and browns), Manly (great for striped hats/gloves/scarves for guys), Starry Night (inspired by Van Gogh’s famous painting) Whisper (the softest, sweetest colors), and Doll Parts (hair and skin tones for knitting dolls). Each set is great for colorwork and fair isle (like Colorwork Christmas Ornaments), for knitting cute striped patterns (like Leap, Zig and Zag Sock Yarn Blanket, and Starfield Cuffs) , for baby socks and clothes (like Saartje’s Bootees, Tiny Shoes, and Wee Tiny Owl Socks) , for Hexapuffs and Sock Yarn Blankets, for small items (like Sweater Ornaments, Mini Mittens, Holly, Ivy and Steve which look great in Christmas Colors, but I want them in Chocolate and Roses or Whisper, Cabled Coffee Cuff, and Seed Stitch Bracelets) and for coordinating with other multi-colors. Here are the new Cake Sets:

Chocolate & Roses, Starry Night, Whisper

Manly, Doll Parts

JulieSpins – Silky 435. This fingering weight yarn comes 435 yards to the skein and is 50% Silk, 50% Superwash Merino. It has a beautiful light sheen and wonderful hand. You’ll like it for shawls, scarves, lace, and lightweight sweaters. Shown below in Leafy Shadow, Persian Violets, and Night Bird.

GoKnit Bags - we’ve re-stocked all of the colors in this great project bag line.

KnowKnits Bracelets – we’ve re-stocked all of the colors in these quick-to-knit kits, perfect for gift-giving. You can see the set I knit up on this blog post.

Have fun perusing and shopping, and we’ll look forward to packing up all of your orders asap!

Sheri startingsocksoutofLoopyLodgethisweek

We headed cross-country back to St. Louis for Thanksgiving weekend last week. The 13 hour car drive across Colorado, Kansas and Missouri certainly brings lots of knitting time! Consequently, I was able to (finally) finish my Derecho. This is the second one I have done. I did the first one in the smaller size (see it here), and chose to do this one in the larger size. The small size stops before the last two long strips on the bottom left and right edge, so you can see how the size compares. There is a lot of knitting in the larger size. I made this one out of Shalimar Breathless in Sea Glass, Neptune and Buttermilk. You need a light, medium and dark color for this pattern. For this larger size, I used 1 1/2 skeins of the darkest color, 1 skein each of the other two. Despite being a bit tired of all that knitting by the end, I did make the border a bit larger. I did 10 rows (including pickup and bindoff) instead of the 3 that it called for. I like that the border is twice the width of the regular stripes.

I wanted to share some of the beautiful Derecho Shawls (by designer Laura Aylor) that inspired me to make the two that I made this summer and fall. Thanks to all of you who chose this design for one of your Camp Loopy projects this summer.

Martha’s Derecho made with Madelinetosh Sock in Wash, Forestry and Mineral:

MK’s Derecho made with Madelinetosh Sock in Antler, Iris and Tart:

Beth’s Derecho made with Swan’s Island Organic Fingering in Blue, Iron Oxide and Forest Floor:

Glenna’s Derecho made with Madelinetosh Merino Light in Dusk, Mare and Sequoia:

Malia’s Derecho made with the Loopy Ewe Solid Series in Black, Slate and Malachite:

Kristi’s Derecho made with the Loopy Ewe Solid Series in Navy, Lilac and Orchid:

Jump on in to the Derecho pattern. All you need is a light, a medium, and a dark (fingering weight, 400 yards or so of each color, unless you’re doing the large size and then you’ll need more of the dark color). Or try one of Laura’s other beautiful patterns – Faberge, All the Shades of Truth, Enamored, Oak Park, Serra, and more. I think the Oak Park scarf will be one of my next projects. It looks fun to knit up! Plus, I like projects that involve more than one color. Do you?

Sheri offtocontemplatecolorsintheaisles

We have plenty of beautiful things that just went up on the website for you tonight. Time to spoil yourself with something new, right? We added in:

Wooden Sock Blockers – they’re back! Since leaving St. Louis (where my husband had the machine to make these), we’ve had to find a new person to make them and a new person to finish them. We still have them cut in St. Louis, and now Elf Michael is doing the finish work. (Luckily, he is also a woodworker, in addition to being a top-notch Loopy Elf!) We’ll be able to continue to put stock up regularly now that we have this all worked out. I know that some of you have been waiting a long time for them to come back.

Fibernymph Dye Works - Lisa sent us her famous self-striping line this time, and each one is more beautiful than the next. Since striping yarns are so labor-intensive, we can only get them in rotation with her other awesome lines, but we will carry them as often as we can get them. Self-striping yarns look particularly great in socks, cowls, hats, mittens and gloves. (Shown here in Home for Christmas.)

Twentyseven27 Soap – the Christmas scents are back, as well as my all time favorite (Almond Poppyseed). Look for: Cinnamon Sugar, Chocolate Peppermint, Jasmine Rose, Cherry Almond, and Bergamont Tea Tree. It would be cute to make mittens or gloves for someone, and then tuck in this hand-made soap as well.

Woolen Mill Street – Christina has sent a gorgeous batch of her 100% Superwash fingering weight. You’ll see some tribute colors to some of your favorite TV shows and movies in there, which is double fun! These colors would be beautiful for socks, but also in shawls (multi-color shawls like Lintilla, Hitchiker, and 22.5 degrees), two color shawls where you pick a multi for one part and a solid for another (like Pamuya) and how about the cute Hitchhands pattern for mittens and Hitchhat for your head? (Shown here in Jack O’Neill).

Soak – We have new Travel Kits that contain 8 mini packets of Soak. Each packet will do 2 washes, so it’s a great way to take along soap for your handknits. (Or include one packet with each handknit you gift to someone). We also have the new Soak Handmaid – a 3 oz. bottle of their luxurious hand creme, perfect for popping in your purse or knitting bag.

Offhand Designs – A new batch of beautifully made knitting bags. We have them in the Scottie, the Marcella, and the Zhivago. It has been awhile since we’ve had this line and we had such fun unpacking the boxes and oohing and aahing over the pretty fabrics and great styles. (Shown here in the Marcella style with the Saratoga fabric).

ChiaoGoo – a re-stock on all of our ChiaoGoo needles.

Ruffled Neckwrap Pattern – for those of you who emailed about where to get this cute cowl after I blogged and linked to it last week, we now have the pattern available. This is a great pattern for a quick and easy worsted weight cowl (out of Malabrigo Worsted, Spud and Chloe Sweater, Madelinetosh Pashmina Worsted, Dream in Color Classy, etc.)

A big HAPPY THANKSGIVING to those of you in the U.S.! We hope you have a wonderful week with familiy and friends. When we think about what we’re thankful for, all of YOU are always at the top of our list (inside the U.S and out!). We never forget that we’re dependent on you for this business, and we are always happy to have you here.

We do have special Holiday Hours this week - the brick and mortar shop (and phones) will be closed Wednesday and Thursday for our Thanksgiving holiday. We’ll be open in-store and packing up orders on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday. I also have two new woven scarves to share with you on Wednesday’s blog, and a great muffin recipe for you on Friday’s blog.

Sheri wholikesturkeysandwichesmorethanhotturkeyonThanksgiving.
Anyoneelsefeellikethat?

George has been in with another batch of those gorgeous  yarn caddies. Smalls and Larges in all different kinds of wood. Wouldn’t this make a nice holiday gift for you? (You can buy it for yourself, or send someone else over here to get you one.) We have oohed and aahed over each one. And there are a lot.

My favorite ones are the ones that have speckles or knots or other designs in the wood. I always figure something happened to that tree during that growth time, and I like that it’s preserved to make things interesting in the caddie! Here are some examples:

We’ll have another batch of these in February, so this is it for the time being. We get batches about every other month.

We also put up a bunch of Malabrigo for you tonight! You’ll find Worsted (shown here in Amoroso), Rios, and Lace all re-stocked in large numbers. The Worsted and Rios has me thinking about quick to knit cowls. Like the 5th Avenue Infinity Scarf, the Thermis, Pedestrian Crossing Cowl, Herringbone Neck Warmer, Cap’n Crunch, Winter Wonder, and Ruffled Neckwrap. Do you have someone on your holiday list that might need a cowl this season? Of course the worsted also knits up quick for mitts, scarves, hats and sweaters as well. Get some large needles and get clicking on it!

Have fun checking out the new things and we’ll get your orders packed up and shipped off quickly.

Sheri prettysureIneedseveralyarncaddies,right?

We’ve been thinking about you East Coasters all day, and hoping that you stay safe and warm and dry. (The stash is in a safe place, right?) What a storm to ride out. We’ll stay on top of the news and do let us know that you’re doing ok!

It’s Monday, but we don’t have an Update tonight. (I know!) Although we have lots and lots on order, we just didn’t get much in last week to put up. Maybe the UPS and FedEx people got together and decided to stockpile our new shipments, to get a week off? Of course you realize we still have thousands and thousands of skeins of yarn nestled on the shelves here at Loopy, ready to hop in a package and fly on over to your home, right? So it’s not like you have nothing to choose from without a Monday Update. Since some of you are home-bound with Hurricane Sandy, I thought I’d take the time to start our holiday gift knitting discussion, and give you some fun possibilities. You might get some good knitting time in over the next week. (Maybe by candlelight.)

Teacher Gift Ideas: A cute stuffed apple, 3D Apple Bookmark, Apple Coasters, or an apple cozy in Cascade 220 Superwash 808 and 887.  Of course you don’t have to make them something apple-themed. You could also opt for a fingerless mitts like Susie Roger’s Reading Mitts (in Cascade Eco Alpaca for soft mitts in neutral colors that go with all coat colors, or Dream in Color’s Everlasting DK for some color pop), or Cafe au Lait mitts (tucked into a new coffee mug with a Starbucks coupon, in Road to China Light, shown here in Carnelian), or the Cabled Pattern Wrist Warmers from Drops, which remind me of a favorite cabled turtleneck for your hands (perfect in Madelinetosh Sport).

Your favorite female friends and relatives: Besides those fun mitts patterns, you might also consider:

Cowls like Biscuit (done in luscious cashmere from Jade Sapphire’s line), or Abstract Leaves Cowl (in Lorna’s Laces Solemate, shown here in South Shore, which will help to regulate the hot/cold, and with the option of beads), or a Brighton (in your favorite multi-color from Three Irish Girls Adorn or Glenhaven), or a Byzantine (in The Loopy Ewe Solid Series colors).

Scarves like Falling Water (in Shalimar Breathless), or Favorite Scarf Ever (in Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock), or Tiger Eyes (in Shalimar Zoe Sock), or the Rill Scarf (in Prism Lace).

Shawls like Cinnamon Toast (in Stonehedge Shepherd’s Wool DK), or Trillion (in Mountain Colors Bearfoot, shown here in Sapphire Trail), or Lightwaves (in Kauni Multi and Kauni Solid), or Topiary (in Madelinetosh Pashmina Worsted).

I know it would be helpful to start all of the gift knitting in January, but despite my best intentions, it never happens. Why? Because I scurry around and make gifts in November and December and then figure I want to knit something for myself, come January. One of these years I’ll learn (plan, execute) better. But not yet. Next week I’ll give you some pattern ideas for the guys in your life. Are you making a lot of gifts this year? And did you plan better than I did?

Sheri needingtoleaveworkimmediatlyinordertostartgiftknitting

We’ve had some hat knitting going on around here lately, and they are all turning out great. Hats are a quick gift knit, in case you’ve started thinking about what you might want to make for people this season. Here’s a Sockhead Hat that I knit out of Biscotte & Cie self-striping yarn.

I love how the striping makes a bullseye as you get smaller near the top.

Here’s an adorable Swirl Baby Hat that Loopy customer Christine brought in to show us. This was also knit with Biscotte & Cie, with the flower & band done in Three Irish Girls.

Loopy Elf Roberta got in on the hat craze by making a Sockhead Hat out of Baah! yarn in one of their striping colors.

Need some other fun hat pattern ideas for yourself or friends and family? Try:

Fingering Weight: Peerie Flooers, Ishbel Beret, Bristol Hat, Zigging Hat, Collision, Oslo Star Hat, and Ripple.

Sport/DK Weight: Jacques Cousteau, Lina, Autumn Vines Beret, Sea Beanie, Zelda Cloche, Contemporary, and Golden Autumn.

Worsted Weight: Windschief, Who?, Claudia, Waffle Hat, Nine Dwindling Cables, Twistygoo, The Natural, and Milanese Lace Topper.

Do you have hats on your gift list? What else is on there this season?

Sheri thinkingIneedtomakemyselfaTwistygoo,
justforthename.