Isn’t she a cutie pie? And she has good taste, because you know by her smile that she likes visiting Loopy just as much as we like having here there.

Our time in the mountains is winding down, but it has been great! Lots of knitting done, movies seen, places visited, and time spent with my favorite people. I’ve had fun making some new recipes, too, which I’ll be sharing over time. Today’s was adapted from a Martha Stewart recipe and it’s delicious.

Chocolate Sugar Cookies

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 cup unsalted butter
3 cups sugar
1 cup shortening, melted & cooled
2 eggs
3 tsp. vanilla extract

Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and salt in bowl.

In mixing bowl, mix butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add in melted shortening, and then eggs and vanilla. Mix until creamy. Add flour mixture slowly and mix until just combined.

Drop by rounded tablespoon onto baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees for 13-14 minutes. Let cool on cookie sheet for 1-2 minutes and finish cooling on wire racks.

Sheri HappyFourthofJulyweekendtoallofourLoopyStatesiders!

A few people have asked me how long I make the cuffs on my socks, and whether or not a certain skein of yarn will make 2 socks.

I also knit up a Spirit Trail Fiberworks sock out here. I love the colors (this one is Turkish Stone) and I used my default no-brainer pattern – the Baby Cable Rib. That’s the pattern I use when I don’t want to have to think while I knit. (3 rows of K2, P2, then one row of K2tog but leave on the left needle, knit the first stitch again and pop it both stitches off, then P2). It’s a very stretchy, comfortable sock. We’ll have a Spirit Trail re-stock again soon. I had a lot of fun meeting Jennifer in person at Maryland Sheep & Wool in May, and picking out colors for our next order in person.

So, are you mostly a toe-up sock knitter or a cuff-down sock knitter?  And how long do you like your cuffs?

Sheri enjoyingthealmostdailyafternoonthunderstormsthatlastabout20minutes

We’re working our way through two seasons of Numb3rs while we’re out here.

Back to the Challenge Socks, the challenge was technically over yesterday (June 30th), but until I make a “last call” on photos for the Challenge Gallery, keep knitting. Photos will probably be due by 7/15. It has been really fun to see the incredible socks you all are coming up with.

Have you heard about Knit Grafitti? Check out this website. My favorite is the abandoned gas station. The bus they ride around in is not very subtle, is it?

Sheri HappyCanadaDaytoallofourLoopyCanadians!

P.S. Namaste’s new Hermosa Bags, Mini Clutches, and XL/XXL Pouches are up – check them out!

In knitting news, I started a second sock out of the String Theory Bimini. You know what that means? I want to wear them on my feet this fall, not just have one on display at Loopy. I know that we have sold out of several colors already. We’ll have more as soon as possible. Right now they’re working on an order for me for The Sock Summit. (Who’s coming to that big event? We are looking forward to seeing you there!)

Sock Clubbers – it’s almost July, and you know what that means? Another Sock Club Kit coming out to you soon. Watch your emails for the invoice sometime later this week!

Sheri reallyneedingtoworkonmysweater,butcan’tputthesocksdown
Evenonvacation,theredoesn’tseemtobeenoughtimetokniteverything

I am having plenty of time to knit and relax on this trip.

1. We’re doing things that I can talk about and photo. In a typical week, my life is pretty much LoopyLoopyLoopy. Not a whole lot of new and interesting things to blog about. (That doesn’t mean we don’t do anything else, but I don’t think you all need to hear that WH and I went to a movie, or I found an old friend on Facebook, or church was great on Sunday, or we got together for dinner with friends, or I cleaned the house.)

2. I have more time to blog. As I said above, a typical week includes a lot of LoopyLoopyLoopy work.

3. I like keeping in touch with you.

When I’m back in St. Louis, the regular blog schedule will come back. (Hopefully I’ll have yarn news for you that first week back. Lots of yarn enroute.)

Here is the sock that I finished a few days ago. This is one of our new indie dyer lines – String Theory. Someone brought me two skeins of this amazing yarn to the Spring Fling in April, and that’s about all it took for me to get in touch with them. It’s one of those merino/cashmere/nylon yarn bases that we all love, and the colors are just gorgeous. In fact, I carried 4 different colors around with me the afternoon they arrived, because I couldn’t decide which one to use first. I’m in a teal-y mode these days, so this one (Bimini) won. (I left the rest for all of you from this first batch, but I do plan to add to my stash as we get more orders from them. It was beautiful to work with and the sock is so comfortable to wear.) I used the Celebratory Chevrons pattern that Debbie O’Neill designed for our very first anniversary. You can find it in the Free Patterns section of the blog, here. This is the second time that I’ve knit this pattern and it continues to be one of my favorites. (Speaking of the anniversary of The Loopy Ewe – we will again have a fun kit to celebrate our THIRD anniversary, which is in August. We’ll have details of that after we get back from having a booth at  The Sock Summit, the first weekend in August.)

The Sneak Up just went up for the week – did you catch it yet? In addition to String Theory, we also added in new colors in Noro Silk Garden Worsted and Kureyon Sock, new colors in Araucania Multi and Semi-Solid, Ella Rae Lace Merino line (which is actually perfect for socks, as well as lace knitting), plus re-stocks in Gale’s Art Black BFL Roving, Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sock and Wooltop, Dream in Color Smooshy, and Araucania Itata. We also re-stocked The Loopy Ewe clear bags and the GoKnit bags over the weekend. Next week, I’ll tell you about more new lines that are coming soon!

Sheri workingonasweater,Girasole,sockandshawl.
Whatareyouworkingonrightnow?

I’m still doing an excellent job of  “Be-ing”, and boy is it nice.

I tried a new recipe for Father’s Day. We had my parents and brother over for lunch that day and my dad likes Peanut Butter Pie. This one came from the Pioneer Woman blog, which I love.

Peanut Butter Pie

Crust:
25 Oreos
1/4 cup butter, melted.

Crush Oreos in blender or food processor until fine. Add melted butter, mix well, and press into the bottom and up the sides of a pie plate.  Bake at 350 degrees for 5-7 minutes. Let cool. (Need this recipe to be even easier? Buy one of the prepared Oreo Pie Crusts at the grocery store. That also saves you from having to eat the rest of the Oreos in the package you had to buy to make this.)

Filling:
1 cup creamy peanut butter
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
8 oz. Cool Whip, thawed
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Whip together peanut butter and cream cheese. Add in the powdered sugar and mix well. Add in the Cool Whip, mixing until light and fluffy. Spoon the filling into the cooled crust and refrigerate for a few hours or over night. (Lick the beaters – it’s delicious.)

Cut into 8 pieces and enjoy!

Sheri wholikesrecipesthatarethiseasy&thisgood

It’s always fun to shop here,

We always finish the day here by having pizza at Downstairs at Erics. (Yes, you do have to go down the stairs to get to the restaurant.) The only thing I don’t like about being up here in the mountains is the altitude. After a few days, you find that you don’t get so out of breath climbing a flight of stairs (FPS), but this t-shirt seemed really appropriate today.

Sheri notmuchknittingdonetodaybutmoviesareontheschedulefortonight,
whichmeansknitting,too!

It was 59 degrees when we rolled into town last night. That is 50 degrees cooler than the 110 heat index that was supposed to be happening in St. Louis. (When we were packing the car yesterday morning, you could barely breath due to the humidity. I’ve compared it to walking in warm Jell-O before, and that still fits. I suppose the St. Louis Department of Tourism would like me to stop discussing this right now.) Today in the mountains – gorgeous. Cool. Invigorating.

Thanks for your comments on the Wind Turbines in Kansas. (By the way, I love everyone from Kansas. The creepiness has nothing to do with you.) When there were just a couple of them, it was kind of fascinating. But now that the hills are full of them in this particular area, it feels creepy to me. Just.too.tall.and.silent. It does sound like they’re all over the place now, according to your posts, so that’s interesting. Like a couple of people mentioned in the comments, I would love to know if you see a savings on your energy bills when you live near them.

Here’s my schedule for vacation. What do you think?

1.  Sleep a little later than normal.

2.  Walk over to get coffee at Starbucks.

3. Sit and drink coffee and look at the mountain views.

4.  Figure out a plan for the day. (Sometimes “BE”, sometims “DO”. Somtimes a little of both.)

5.  Make a great dinner.

6.  Watch movies and knit (or play on the computer, depending on which member of the family you’re talking to). Or read a good book.

7. Answer a few emails and write a quick blog, so that it still feels like I’m doing a little something productive.

8. Hope that nobody notices if I add another week or two to the end of this vacation time.

We used the Random Number Generator to pick two winners from last week’s Blog Contest. The winners (who will be receiving Wollmeise in the mail) are: Grace in NJ and Erin in OH. Congratulations to both of you, and thanks to everyone who posted the foods that they’d like to see knit up!

I’m off to “Be” for the day. I started a new sock in the car and just turned the heel. It’s a new indie yarn going up next week that you will love. I’ll photo it for the blog as soon as it’s done. More tomorrow!

Sheri forgottotellyouthatIorderedabunchofyarnbeforeIleft.ABUNCH.
Hopefullytherewillbelotsofboxestocomehometo.

Here we are, driving down Highway 70 on our way to Colorado.

Sheri itmighthelpifIthoughtofthemasgiantyarnswifts

It’s time to get out of Dodge.

When you go on vacation, do you like to “Do” or “Be”? A Do-Vacation is where you go with the purpose of doing a lot of things. Perhaps it’s a new place to you and you want to fully explore everything that you can when you’re there.  You’re on the go most of the time.  You take a bazillion photos and collect memorabilia along the way. You come back from that trip and say, “We had an amazing time and saw so many cool things!” You might not be rested and relaxed, but you’re invigorated in other ways. I’ve been on some great Do-Vacations.

On the other end of the spectrum is the Be-Vacation. Maybe you’re going to a place where you’ve been before, and your life has seemed so crazy busy lately that you just want to get there and “be”. You want to chill out and stop all of the “doing” that you’ve had going on in your life lately. You hang out, you catch up on sleep, you sit with a cup of coffee and contemplate things, and you don’t need many photos of the occasion. You come back from this trip feeling rested, relaxed, and ready to jump back into things again.

Which do you prefer? I imagine that sometimes you like to DO and sometimes you like to BE. Sometimes in the same trip! We’ve been going to this same place in Colorado for years and years, since my parents have a place out there to stay in. I am looking forward to relaxing and having no set schedule for a bit. I look at our Colorado vacations as mostly Be-Vacations. We pick a few things to Do as well, but my overall goal is to Be while I’m out there. (That doesn’t mean we just sit around. There is plenty of knitting, movies, cooking, shopping, swimming and walking. But it’s a very relaxed pace.) We leave at 7 am tomorrow morning. Of course my clothes are not packed. And of course my knitting projects have been packed since Saturday. Priorities.

I’ll be updating the blog once in awhile while I’m out there, as well as checking in on Ravelry and sorting through a few emails. But I won’t do too much “Do-ing”, so as not to interrupt my “BE-ing”.  The Loopy Elves will keep your orders shipping out in a timely manner. If you need anything, feel free to email Susan (susan AT theloopyewe DOT com) or call in. Susan and her family have just spent a week out there in Colorado and I’m sure she’ll need lots of emails to feel like she’s back in the game again here at Loopy. (Don’t tell her I said that.)  If you check the blog sometime tomorrow, I’ll show you a photo of my most unfavorite spot in the middle of Kansas. It gives me the creeps. Later this week, I’ll do the drawing for this month’s blog contest and will announce the Winners of Wollmeise.

Sneak Ups? We’re planning on them this week and next week, if all goes as planned!

Sheri ifyoucouldchoose,wouldyourathermostlyDOorBEonvacation?