I have a few miscellaneous things to share with you today. First of all, check out the great squirrel picture that WH took. It almost makes squirrels look cute (instead of the birdfeeder destroying, birdfood stealing imps that they are).

Gracie and Zoe continue to find sunshine to sleep in around the house. Today, they seemed to want the same sunbeam at the same time.

Zoe likes to sit on the back of my chair when I’m working. I keep thinking she’ll nod off to sleep and fall off. It could happen. She was sleeping on my lap the other day and had a dream that made her jump and she bounced right out of my lap and onto the floor. Then she looked at me confused, wondering what just happened (and why we were all laughing …)

I’m sorry about the Anniversary Bugga selling out so fast. If you’d like us to reserve a skein for you from the next batch, email us: support@theloopyewe.com. Next week we’ll have another dyer/colorway for the anniversary!

Camp Loopy Reminders:

- remember to finish your Project Two projects by 8/15, with photos uploaded by 8/16 in order to qualify for double FSB points (if you bought the yarn during Camp Store Week – 7/1 – 7/8) and in order to qualify for the Wollmeise bonus (if you complete all three projects by the deadlines).

- to qualify for bonuses, remember that the yarn you use must have been purchased from us during or after Camp Store Week for that project. As we said before, that’s the way we insure that you aren’t sharing an old project with us (or that you didn’t start the project before the start-date.)

- you are welcome to knit from stash and upload a photo to the gallery, as long as it’s yarn that you purchased here. Your photo will be eligible for the random gallery drawings that we will do, even though it won’t be eligible for double FSB points or the Wollmeise bonus.

I know we covered all of these situations in the Camp Loopy Q & A blog post and on Ravelry, but I thought I’d mention it again.

Have you checked out the socks, mittens and gloves that have been uploaded so far? I have had such a fun time seeing what you have done. I’ve also decided that I need to knit a pair of Cookie A’s BFF Socks, and I want yellow mittens out of  the Wood Hollow pattern and red mittens out of the Eugenia’s Mittens pattern. My fall, winter and spring knitting has been set, between Projects One and Two. I’m almost afraid to see what you all do with Project Three.

Got any Bits and Bobs to tell us?

Sheri fivemoredaysandthenwecanstartthelastCampLoopyProject!

You know there is to much on your To-Do List when you start looking at colors of yarn and make up coffee and tea names to go with it. Not that I need an extra dose of caffeine to get through my list or anything. WH took some extra photos of a few skeins of our Loopy Ewe Solid Series and it makes me think of coffee, tea and chocolate (clockwise, starting in the upper left corner):

- strong espresso
- peach tea on ice
- salted caramel hot chocolate
- mocha latte
- iced chai tea
- peppermint hot chocolate

(Ok, in real life they are called Coffee, Sand, Rose Brown, Mocha, Tan, and Sienna. We tried to stay with one or two word names for our Loopy line. But I could’ve really gone to town on names, if I didn’t think that “simple is often better” when naming a basic solids line.)

I might need to add a Tea and Coffee scarf pattern to my To-Do List. It would definitely remind me of Life in the Spring of 2011, which has been crazy nuts.  Or I could whip up a scarf with a combination of some colors that are hot and some that are cold, because some days are in the 80′s and other days, it’s snowing. That seems to be the norm this spring, too. And I definitely need to make a scarf with a variety of blues. Not because I’m BLUE, mind you, but because I seem to be a bit addicted to a combination of Robin’s Egg Blue like the Loopy wall, and similar colors. What colors would you use if you were making a scarf to represent your own Life in the Spring of 2011?

Sheri workingonnewyarninfosignsforLoopyshelvestoday

Why is it that you can have the nicest toys for your kids, and the plushest beds for your cats, and they prefer the boxes and the wrapping? (Well, at least that works until a certain age with kids. At some point, a refrigerator box is a lot less appealing than a refrigerator stocked with good food.) I was unwrapping some things this weekend and had packing paper on the floor. Zoe bypassed a nice comfy bed in favor of plopping her tiny self into the middle of the crunchy, noisy packing paper. She clawed it, she tasted it, and then she curled up and fell asleep. I’m pretty sure it was the highlight of her day.

We have an Update full of beautiful color for you today! And just to make things challenging for the Loopy Elves, we’ve stocked a few similar-sounding yarn bases from Hand Maiden. They’ll need some caffeine before coming in to the shop to pull orders for you tomorrow. Just up:

Hand Maiden Sea Silk – 70% Silk, 30% Seacell, this 436 yard fingering weight skein is ideal for shawls and scarves. This is a yarn that you’ll get and want to cast on immediately.

Hand Maiden Swiss Moutain Sea Sock – 51% Silk, 29% Superwash Merino, 20% Seacell, this is also a 436 yd. fingering weight skein. In addition to shawls and scarves, you can also use this one for socks. Simply scrumptious treats for your feet. I’m currently finishing up a little shawl out of this. (The photo shows the Salt Spray colorway.)

Hand Maiden Swiss Silk – 100% silk and one of their newest bases, this 436 yd. light fingering weight yarn is perfect for shawls, scarves and cowls. I think Hand Maiden’s beautiful colors show so well on their silk and silk blend yarn bases.

(And if I were trying to decide what to use each base for, I’d be using it to make: A Sea Silk Scarf for an upcoming birthday gift, a Swiss Mountain Sea Sock pair of socks for myself, and a Swiss Silk Shawl for a friend for Christmas. Because, you know, I’m all about knitting ahead this year….)

Madelinetosh Pashmina – We put 43 more colors of this up today. I know you love this merino/silk/cashmere blend as much as I do, because you keep buying us out! This sportweight yarn is a little quicker to knit than fingering, and I like the way it makes your stitch patterns pop. Great for socks, scarves, shawls, wraps, and sweaters.

String Theory Hand-Dyed Caper - A few more colors have made their way to our shop (via boxes that got separated from the others), so we now have those up for you. Just added: Ruby Slipper, Winterberry, Cobalt, and Canyon.

Kollage Riveting – The yarn made from re-cycled jeans, re-stocked again in Storm, Dusk, Night and Charcoal, which we have been out of.

Dream in Color Classy and Starry - re-stocks in several colors that you’ve been waiting for.

Needles - a re-stock of Kollage’s square circulars and DPN’s.

Accessories - a re-stock of Stitch Savers (that handy little crochet hook for rescuing dropped stitches), Knitting Counters (am I the only one who needs one of these in every knitting bag?), and Sheep-y Tape Measures.

Sheri whojustsawafewsnowflakesoutthewindow.Andyesterdayitwasinthe80′s.FPS.

What a crazy winter we’ve had around here. On Saturday, our area had a 6″ snowfall. I don’t ever remember getting so much snow in one winter season, much less this late in the season. On Saturday, we had …

… snow on the Hyacinths …

… snow on the Bradford Pear Trees …

… and snow all the way up and down the street.

By Sunday afternoon, it was all gone and the green grass and blooming flowers were once again sharing their color and beauty. Crazy. I’m a big fan of snow and cold, but once the flowers start blooming, I’m done with winter. (Apparently not.)

We put up more fun things on the website today, and I know you’ll enjoy them! We have:

- a big order from Malabrigo, which brought Worsted and Sock weights, plus a few more Rios (shown here in Zarzamora) and Lace colors.

- We added in a great batch of String Theory Hand Dyed Caper Sock. (These are still one of my very favorite pairs of socks. And I knit the second which, as you know, is very unusual for me. I just love that yarn and wanted to wear both socks, not just display one here at Loopy.)

- We have the March Color Cruise coloway from Fiesta in both Boomerang and Baby Boom (shown here – called Barcelona). We’ve also re-stocked a big batch of Fiesta Boomerang as well. (This was one of my very favorite scarves. I gifted that one to a friend. I’m almost done with another. Pick two colors of Boomerang and jump in!)

- We added in gorgeous colors of Superwash Sock from Josette in Maine and her Enchanted Knoll Farm line. (I’m using Whale Song for some socks.)

- We have more Hazel Knits, finally! I know you love Wendee’s yarn base and colorways – we do, too. It’s fun to have it in stock again. (Shown here in Ice Cream Sundae. Yum.)

Enjoy the perusing and shopping, and we’ll get your orders packed up and shipped out tomorrow and Wednesday. You want them by this coming weekend, right? (We’re still working on teleporting the international orders. Two day shipping to any location around the world. We can get that going, right? We’ll keep working on that. In the meantime, we’ll use the good ol’ USPS.)

Sheri withacoldoffice.Mightneedtoturntheheatbackon.

I mentioned on Monday’s post that WH and I snuck up to Chicago for a quick weekend, last weekend. (Birthday fun!) On Saturday, we stopped by Lorna’s Laces for a tour and then lunch with Beth and her husband, Michael. What a fun place to see! It looks like an explosion of color in there. There was a knitting group just finishing up a tour, so Paul wandered around and took photos (as he likes to do) and I kept seeing yarn that I wanted to take home. (Never mind that it was all colorways that I already have here at Loopy. Seeing it there put me in shopping mode. I can’t explain it, but I know that you all understand this.)

They have lots and lots of name stamps on trays, so we found our Loopy Ewe stamp (for our Loopy Ewe colorway) and our Team Spirit stamp. And obviously I need to order more of both lines, today. Smart way to put names on your labels, if you intend to sell lots of that colorway. We also found some of our yarn hanging up to dry, so I know we’ll be seeing that shipped down here soon. I think we have shipments coming from Lorna’s Laces almost every week. (Because we love it and you all love it.)

I really enjoyed watching Beth dye some special yarn. She had me pick the colors that I wanted to include, and it was really interesting watching them come together. Of course I had to leave it there for now. It still had to go through the “setting the colors, washing, drying, skeining” process, but I’m anxious to see it when it’s all done. I’ll show it to you when I can.

And another thing? It convinced me (not that I have ever considered it anyway) that I am happy to leave the dyeing to the dyers. I have no interest in trying my hand at it. I DO love ordering it and unpacking it and putting photos of it up on the website and knitting with it and shipping it out to all of you. But I don’t want to make it. I just want to appreciate it. I guess Beth is in the best job for her (she loves her job!) and I’m in the best job for me. And that’s why it all works like it’s supposed to.

Sheri whoshould’vetakenapictureofBethandMichaelforyouFPS
(butyoucanseeabitofBethinthefirstphoto)

Since we were covered in ice this week, the birds were particularly interested in hanging out around our birdfeeders that day. Paul (WH) had fun trying out a great lens (macro lens, maybe?) on some of them. If you really like birds, you can click on the photos to make them even bigger.

The female Cardinal is named Ethel. She and her husband Fred have been hanging around our birdfeeders year-round for the past six years. They’re my favorites, and they’re the only birds that we (ok, I) have named.

Somehow this Robin seems out of place. I see more Robins in the spring and summer.

Our cats Gracie and Zoe love sitting on the window ledge, watching them. Or maybe they’re dreaming about catching them.

Today we’re welcoming a new batch of Loopy Groupies!  I can’t believe how long it has been since I listed them. So long, in fact, that I’m doing half of them today and saving the other half for next week. And then I’m going to go to www.teuxdeux.com (where I keep my brain and my schedule) and put this task into my calendar so that I remember to blog them more frequently. I know you all like to see the names, because if I forget someone, you always email to let me know! So a warm welcome to our latest Loopy Groupies. We’re so glad to have you here!

Wendy in WA, Heather in MI, Susan in MI, Mary in OH, Michele in Canada, Noriko in Japan, Susan in NC, Fabienne in CA, Kim in IA, Donna in OK, Kerryn in Australia, Bethann in MO, Theresa in MO, Chanina in Israel, Andrea in MA, Karen in OR, Mai in WA, Sue in AK, Rena in MA, Melissa in MN, Melanie in NJ, Pamela in NM, Cindy in NV, Susan in IL, Barclay in NJ, Gaetane in Canada, Melissa in KY, Barbara in Australia, Barbara in KS, Dean in LA, Mette in MO, Erin in GA, Nancy in OR, Debra in OH, Necia in AR, Debora in GA, Jillian in NJ, Michelle in WA, Carrie in IA, Sandy in WI, Lisa in MA, Sue in CA, Mary in VA, Mel in FL, J.F. in MI, Susan in TX, Ruth in CO, Janine in the U.K., Christine in MI, Danielle in NY, Paula in KY, Debora in CA, Susan in CA, Kathy in AK, Karen in VA, Penny in NE, Karol in MO, Samantha in NC, Holly in NH, Christine in MA, Kelly in Canada, Dori in TN, Jennifer in NJ, Sara in CA, Calista in OK, Marietta in GA, Glennalee in IN, Rebecca in OH, Carol in NJ, Kay in WI, Terri in TX, Arlene in NY, Hinkmond in CA, Louise in CA, Diane in CA, Kimberly in SC, Laura in IL, Pamela in NY, Patricia in NJ, Fahy in MA, Jill in IA, Rosemary in MO, Michelle in OR, Judith in TN, Heather in GA, Marilyn in Canada, Judith in VA, Jill in MD, Dana in TN, Anna in Poland, Mya in CO, Jenifer in TX, Susan in IL, Celeste in Australia, Jessica in SD, Preita in CA, Virginia in NV, Nancy in OH, Glenda in WA, Debra in PA, Iris in OH, Clara in ME, Bettye in TX, Eilene in MD, Kathie in CA, Karen in VA, Vivian in Canada, Laura in HI, Ann in KS, Melissa in AR, Jennifer in SC, Meghan in NC, Melanie in IN, Kurt in CA, Rosemary in Australia, Cynthia in OR, Anne in the U.K., Caroline in TN, Melissa in SC, Amy in OH, Daniela in TN, Suzanne in OR, Teri in IL, Kym in TX, John in SC, Jane in KS, Alpha in NY, Teresa in WV, Sarah in NC, Laura in SC, Nina in CA, Cindy in PA, Maxine in Canada, Toni in WA, Chantel in IN, Joan in OH, Christina in CA, Hiromi in Japan, Nancy in MA, Shelly in WA, Katie in TX, Joann in CA, Lani in CA, Helen in Norway, Amy in KY, Jennifer in MD, Hollie in the military, Lorraine in VA, Candy in WI, Stephanie in D.C., Marcela in MI, Jeanett in TX, Mandy in MO, Janet in TX, Wendy in CO, Melissa in Canada, Kristina in NC, Mary in OR, Miranda in WI, Eevi in OR, Rachael in IL, Susan in NY, Heather in MO, Mary in CA, Sandy in MT, Nancy in VA, Bettie in MO, Valerie in NM, Debbie in KY, Mollilou in AR, Adrienne in IL, Shannon in CA, Jill in CT, Candace in NC, Kelley in CA, Jill in ME, Christine in WA, Candice in CA, Jennifer in Canada, Erica in Canada, Carol in VA, Courtney in WA, Kat in AK, Rosemary in CA, Kimberly in PA, Hope in NY, Elise in MA, Jan in CA, Tara in MN, Patricia in MA, Rosemary in Australia, Marcella in MD, Christine in MD, Suzanne in CT, Amy in CA, Michelle in Canada, Leslie in WI, Barbara in MI, Alice in FL, Anastasia in NH, Marianne in TN, Terri in OR, Davilyn in OH, Ann in NY, Therese in CT, Omar in Australia, Michelle in CA, Theresa in CA, Catherine in Norway, Robin in NJ, Megan in MO, Silvia in CA, Carol in OH, Ashley in NJ, Tara in GA, Erin in VA, Meg in FL, Elizabeth in VA, Beverly in MN, Sheri in KY, Adrienne in OR, Amy in OR, Teresa in CA, Kay in OK, Meagheen in NY, Rasa in OH, Gaye in CO, Jenna in TX, Emily in VA, Laura in Canada, Mary in IL, Dawn in ND, Jennifer in TX, Gwynne in NJ, Patty in CA, Julie in NY, Lynae in IL, Amanda in FL, Alexis in MA, Angela in FL, Claudia in Germany, Debra in IN, Janet in MI, Tamara in MO, Yuka in Japan, Sandra in NY, Jennifer in CA, Sara in NV, Tanya in ND, Martha in KY, Jennifer in KS, Gail in WI, Jamie in KS, Martina in Canada, Erin in Australia, and Rica in Norway.

That’s the first half. More next Friday. In the meantime, have a great weekend and get lots of knitting done. I picked out a sweater pattern and an Ultra Pima color and will start in on that. It would be nice if I’d stick with one project and get it done in a reasonable amount of time. Too much to hope for?  What are you doing this weekend – anything fun?

Sheri warminguptoawhopping35degreesthisweekend.Heatwave!