It’s almost Christmas! We are closed today through Wednesday, so I wanted to take this time to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas. This is a photo of the old post office in downtown Fort Collins and it seemed a pretty, peaceful photo to share for the season. They put up the most beautiful lights in downtown Fort Collins during the holidays, and this photo that Paul took shares a little bit of that with you. (Click on the photo to make it bigger and enjoy it even more!)

Turn up the holiday lights, make yourself a cup of hot cocoa, and enjoy time with your family and friends this week. We’ll be back in the shop on Thursday (come to Knit Night if you’re in town!) and I’ll be back with you on Friday here on the blog. Merry Christmas!

Sheri and The Loopy Ewe Crew

P.S. Congratulations to the RAK contest winners from last Friday’s blog. We’re sending a skein of The Loopy Ewe Seasoning Series to Kay (who gave away a Turn A Square hat to a new knitter in their knitting group) and Rachel (who stopped by to visit her grandmother at her nursing home on a cold, rainy, busy day this week.) Rachel and Kay – please email me so that we can get your color choices! I hope you all had time to read the comments on our RAK blogs the first three Fridays of December. You’ve been up to some wonderful things!

We sure seem to have a lot of geese here in Fort Collins. They fly overhead in the mornings, honkinghonkinghonking trying to figure out who is supposed to be at the head of the V formation. They waddle up and down the sidewalks in different spots. And they swim in the local lakes and ponds. Paul (WH) took some great photos that I wanted to share with you. (Does anyone cook a goose for Christmas dinner? Never mind. I probably don’t want to know.)

And just so the ducks don’t feel left out:

We have had two Loopy Elf parties in the past two weeks. The first one was a dinner that included spouses, and that was a lot of fun. Then we had a fun lunch with everyone bringing something, earlier this week. Cathy brought a warm beverage called Cranberry Bog that we all enjoyed. I’m going to have a pot of this simmering on the stove on Christmas day. Yum.

Cathy’s Cranberry Bog

3 cups boiling water
2 tea bags
2 cups cranberry juice cocktail
1/2 cup pineapple juice
1/2 cup orange juice
1/2 cup sugar

Steep tea for 3 minutes in the boiling water. Combine all other ingredients and heat. Serve with cinnamon sticks.

It’s time for our final RAK Reporting day. Did you do something fun for someone else this week? Leave a comment and tell us about it below and I’ll draw the winners and will announce them on Monday’s blog. If you need ideas so that you can squeeze in a Random Act of Kindness before I draw winners on Monday, check out our first two blog posts here and here. The randomly drawn winners will receive a skein of The Loopy Ewe Seasonings Series of their choice. Thank you for all of your participation this year in our RAK’s!

Do you have guests arriving this weekend? My mum-in-law arrives today and we always love having her here with us for the holidays. I really lucked out in the mother-in-law department. Have a great weekend!

Sheri hopingyougetallofyourlastminuteknittingdone,too

Do you ever feel like you stepped onto an out-of-control merry-go-round? (Or yarn winder, if one were able to sit on a yarn winder….) That’s what this week has felt like. Busy, busy, busy. Maybe I just need to sit and chill and knit for awhile tonight. I’ve been working on my Cabled Rib Wrap and not working on my Charleston Tea (although I need to). I’m also ready to get another scarf on the loom. The purple one from last week is done. I’ll show it to you as soon as I wash and block it. I had fun working on it!

It’s time for our October Blog Contest, and I thought it would be fun to give away a skein from our newest indie dyer. I’m happy to say that we’re adding Fibernymph Dye Works to the shop. We’ll have Lisa’s beautiful semi-solids, striping yarns, and also her awesome roving. This line will be going up soon, but you have a chance to win a skein before it goes up! Leave a comment below and we’ll draw a winner next week. You can pick the color you’d like, from these five pictured. (Left to Right: Brigid’s Cloak, Autumn Harvest, Nothing But Blue Skies, Elphaba’s Corset, and An Air of Elsewhere.) The October Blog Question is: Do you have any other needle arts hobbies besides knitting? (Spinning? Weaving? Quilting? Counted Cross Stitch? Needlepoint? Rug Hooking?) To enter the drawing, leave your answer in the comments below. We’ll email you if we draw your name next week.

Sheri BigBandMusicplaying.Makesmewanttowatchanoldmovie.

Sometimes you’ll get a peek of wildlife while you’re driving around in the mountains. Last week, my hubby got some great up-close photos (including the last one, where these guys feel like they own the road.)

Sheri thinkingtheylookveryneatandtidyforbeingwild.
Howdotheydothat?

It’s a crazy day today, so you get an official Wacky Wednesday post. (That just means I’m thinking about too many different things to narrow it down to one blog post. I did, however, find a really pretty flower photo that WH took, so at least you have something nice to look at here …)

Here are my random thoughts this afternoon:

- Haven’t started my Camp Three project yet. Still working on two things that I want to show in in a week or two. THEN I can get to the Camp Project.

- Didn’t the Women’s Gymnastics Team do great last night?

- Wishing the news wouldn’t inadvertently spoil the outcome of Olympic events held earlier in the day.

- Wondering what Michael Phelps will do in his retirement. Maybe he’ll take up knitting.

- Trying to figure out what I want to make with the 4 different skeins of JulieSpins that I bought for myself from this week’s Update. Dappled, Vineyard, and 2 Riverbank.

- Looking forward to our local Yarn Crawl, which starts on August 11th. Nine great shops in Northern Colorado and Southern Wyoming participating. If you’re not local, can you fly in for it? (Sounds like a marvelous summer vacation to me.)

- Anxious to try out the new reading glasses that we are adding in to the shop. (Realizing that many of you don’t need to use reading glasses, but I do and these are awesome. I admit, I mostly bought them for myself.)

- Happy to live in a place where I can get up and walk before work and not arrive back home dragging from the humidity.

- Also? Happy to see mountains every day.

How about you? Anything you’re wishing, wondering, looking forward to, or happy about?

Sheri stormingoutside,yayrain!

Not much to write about today (we’re still getting orders out from Camp Store Week), so I thought I’d share the cute alpaca photos that WH took awhile back. These sweet animals live with the nice folks who own Prairie Moon Alpacas, and please note that they have male alpacas for sale. Don’t you want one?

You gotta love the one in the second to last photo – the one with the cute teeth.

Aren’t they beautiful?

Sheri clearingspaceinthebackyardforalpacas.
Don’ttellWH.