It’s nice to be back with you for a regular Monday Update again! We have been stockpiling things in the stock room over the holidays, and tonight we start back into sharing the new things with you on Mondays. Just up, we added in:

Madelinetosh Merino Light. This single-ply fingering weight yarn is great for shawls, scarves, lightweight sweaters, and more. I used it for two different two-color projects (and have a few more 2-color combos squirreled away in my stash for more shawls to come.) I used it for a Pamuya:

And I also used it for a Whippoorwill:

It’s a wonderful base to work with. If you haven’t yet tried it, you ought to.

Dream in Color Smooshy with Cashmere. This is a luscious base. Also wonderful to work with, and so soft to wear. It would make great socks, scarves, cowls, hats, shawls, mittens and gloves. I used it to make a 28′s Cousin 53:

We also added in notions from HiyaHiya – Puppy Snips, Kitty Snips, Dumpling Cases, and Yarn Ball Stitchmarkers. How cute are these Snips?

We’ve also re-stocked the HiyaHiya needles (circulars, DPN’s, Interchangeable sets and tips, etc.)

And several different scents and sizes of Soak wash.

Remember, all of your 2013 purchases accumulate points in our new Loopy Rewards Program. We keep track and send you fun little gifts each time you earn them. We’ve had a great time sending out reward gifts already this week, and we look forward to sending out many more. We appreciate you all here!

Sheri thinkingaboutstartinganewprojecttonight.Howaboutyou?

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?

Ever since our first month’s Camp Loopy Challenge last summer, I have been a bit taken with two-color shawls. First of all, it’s really fun to pick the colors. Secondly, they look so darned fun, knit up. I finished my Sothia Shawl, which has been on my “Want to Make” list since I approved so many of your Sothia Shawls last summer for the challenge! I like shawls with ruffles (although I’m so not a ruffle-y person). I knit this with 2 skeins of String Theory Caper Cobalt and 1 skein of Hand Maiden Casbah Smoke.

What I like about the pattern: It fits really well. I like how the ends are designed to curve in around you. Nice shape. Also, a very cute ruffle on the end. However ….

What I didn’t like about the pattern: Knitting the never-ending ruffle. I’ve made quite a few things with ruffles (like this Mara Shawl and that Mara Shawl, this Shawl that Jazz and that Shawl that Jazz, this 28′s Cousin 53 and that 28′s Cousin 53, this And So Are You and that And So Are You, and Pleiades. Just one of those). I’m used to ruffles. I can get into a zone and K2P2 like nobodies business. This one, however, went on and on, and had two increases as you went on. Granted, this makes the ruffle flare out a bit (which is nice), but holy cow, I never thought I’d finish that ruffle. Glad it’s done. Maybe I should steer clear of ruffles for awhile.

Now I have picked out three more sets of colors for two-color shawls and I’m going through different patterns, trying to decide what I want to do. I am thinking about: Skewed Shawl, Dancette, Pamuya, Whippoorwill, Amalia, Spectra, Scalene, Ulmus, Taygete, Daybreak, Lakedale, and Ishbel. Decisions, decisions.

Here are the colors (all in Madelinetosh Merino Light, because we have shelves and shelves and shelves full of it, enticing me.)

There’s the Envy/Baltic Combo:

The Charcoal/Black Velvet Combo:

And the Mansfield Garden Party/Fragrant Combo:

Doesn’t that make you want to knit a two-color shawl? Have you tried one yet?

Sheri yes,IknowIhavetheQuarterlyChallengeSweatertodo,too

We have two of your favorite M-yarns back in stock for you tonight! Both can be challenging to get (due to the fact that the companies are popular and the bases are popular), but just know we continue to have orders in their queues all the time. We love this stuff, too. Just up tonight you’ll find:

Madelinetosh Merino Light - we’ve been waiting to get a big re-stock on this, and it’s here! More than 100 colors now in stock. I made one of my favorite-ever shawls with two colors of Merino Light (my Whippoorwill Shawl shown here, pattern available here). I gave that shawl away, but I did decide that I needed to knit another shawl with Merino Light to keep for myself. So I made this Pamuya for me last summer. It’s wonderful to work with and knits up beautifully. For shawl inspiration, check back on the Camp Loopy Project One Gallery – lots of two-color beauties there. (Shown here in Well Water.)

Malabrigo Rasta – another yarn we’ve been waiting on. (Have you noticed that Madelinetosh and Malabrigo both have long waiting lists of orders? We always have both of these companies “on order”, and get them as often as we can) Rasta is a Super Bulky yarn that is great for big, warm cowls, hats, scarves, and even bulky sweaters and vests. I made this cowl out of it. We can email you a free pattern with purchase, if you’d like to make the cowl. Just leave us an order note. (Shown here in Zarzamora.)

Mountain Colors Roving – this just makes me want to sit down and spin. The colors are amazing and I know the resulting handspun is beautiful. And have you ever knit with handspun? There’s nothing like it. (Shown here in Spring Eclipse.)

Schacht Spinning Wheels – in case the Roving inspires you and you decide you simply must have a new wheel – we have a new batch of those in, too! We have Ladybugs, Matchless Double Treadles, and Sidekicks. (Remember, we can only ship these to the lower 48 States, unfortunately.)

Jordana Paige Bags – another re-stock! We have the Rios and the LJ Kaelms bags back in, ready to carry your knitting from here to there in style.

Lorna’s Laces Soak Kits - the holiday Solemate/Soak kit combos were such a hit that Lorna’s Laces and Soak have teamed up once again to introduce three new kits to you. There is a kit with the Campbell Colorway and Cucumber Heel Creme, one with a skein of the Cornelia Coloway and Peppermint Heel Creme, and one with a skein of the Dobson colorway and Scentless Heel Creme. We were also able to get a re-stock of the very popular Zombie BBQ kit (with Cucumber Heel Creme), and we have a few remaining sets of the Beverly/Peppermint, Lincoln Park Zoo/Spearmint, and Purple Club/Scentless as well. (These would make nice Mother’s Day gifts for the knitting mothers in your life.) Have you tried Soak’s Heel Creme? It’s the best. (Shown here in Campbell/Peppermint combo kit.)

Have fun shopping and pop in on the Loopy Webcam tomorrow to see if you can catch your order being packed up (or to see what someone else ordered – it’s fun to see that, too!).

Sheri whoknitasockinbetweenshawlprojectsthisweek.
Anditwasafunone! (Willshareasap.)

It didn’t take long for me to become totally smitten with two-color shawls, after Camp Loopy this summer. As I was going through and approving photos, there were certain patterns that just looked so eye-catching, no matter what colors people used and no matter what yarn they knit them up in. One of those was Kristen Kapur’s Cladonia Shawl. (We’re currently out of our copies, but you can find it here on Ravelry). I loved the shape, and I loved the edging. I knit this up in Lorna’s Laces Shepherd Sport (Grand Street Ink) and The Sanguine Gryphon Bugga (some spider-y named color way, I think?). It was fun to knit and went pretty quickly. I did a regular picot bind off so that it wouldn’t be quite so loopy. (Do a knitted cast on of 2 stitches, bind off 4 stitches, place the 1 remaining right-hand stitch onto the left needle and repeat.) I have yet to find my blocking wires since the move (you know, they come in a big long tube? The kind that would only fit in so many boxes? FPS), so this was just steam blocked with an iron. I’ll re-block it properly when I find the missing wires.

Another shawl on my soon-to-make list (in fact, I found yarn at Loopy this week for it) is the Sothia. Gorgeous. I know that ruffle will take close to forever, but I’ve done 2 Mara’s, so I’m pretty sure I can stand it. (And hey – the pattern is on sale until the end of October. Happy Birthday Robin!)

I was also particularly attracted to Spectra (which I’m thinking I will make with Zauberball and something), Daybreak (which will be a Loopy Ewe Solid/Jitterbug mix and also? Stephen, stop with the awesome patterns already), Catkin (I already have 2 Madtosh sock colors set aside – a copper and a teal), and Pamuya (which I may knit as a one-color out of JulieSpins Silky NorthShore. And guess what? That’s a teal colorway.). I made one Pamuya for camp, but really want to make another as well. I’m not a big fan of the two colors I put together for the first one, but it was definitely an interesting pattern to knit.

Are there any two-color shawl patterns that catch your eye? Or do you have a one-color pattern that you’d like to turn into two?

Sheri shippedmyselfaboxofyarnfromSt.LouistoFortCollinstoday

For my Camp Loopy Project One, I chose to knit the Pamuya shawl. I had seen this on several Spring Flingers in April and it immediately went onto my “must make” list. Everyone I talked to about it told me that it was fun to knit because there were enough different things going on that you never got bored knitting it. They were right. It was fun to work on.

I originally planned to use Madelinetosh Merino Light in Celadon and Mansfield Garden Party (which I showed you together here).I However, after adding a couple of rows of Garden Party, I realized that it wasn’t going to work, so I substituted Shoreline instead. I’m kind of wishing I had just started over and added a different solid color to Mansfield, because it’s such a beautiful mix of colors. I guess I’ll save it for another one. Maybe Faraway So Close, which I ran across again the other day. They have a similar look to them, don’t you think? I did start in on my Cladonia with a red Bugga and a purple Lorna’s Laces Sport. So far, so good! That will be a fun project.

Don’t forget that all of your Project One knitting must be done by midnight on Friday, with photos uploaded to our Camp Loopy Project One Gallery by midnight (my time) on Sunday. (International knitters have until Sunday, 7/24 to upload photos, due to increase shipping times). Due to the high numbers of photos being uploaded for this project, it does take us a bit of time to approve them all. If you can see the photo in on your Loopy account page and if you uploaded it by midnight, don’t worry if it doesn’t show up for a few days after that. They appear in the order they were uploaded on our approval page, and I will be sure to note which ones were there by the deadline, even though we’ll still be working through all of them!

For those with questions on how to get your pictures into the gallery - after logging into your Loopy Ewe account, go to your account page and you’ll find a link to add photos there. Here is a note that I put up on the Loopy Groupie board on Ravelry, to answer some of the most often asked questions.

• Don’t forget to tag the yarn that you have used for the project. When you upload the photo, you’re given a list of items that you’ve purchased in the last few months, to make it easier. If you purchased the yarn earlier than that, just leave the yarn name in your photo notes so that we know what you used.
• We can only approve photos that use yarn that we have available at The Loopy Ewe (or that you purchased from us in the past, even if we no longer carry that line).
• I’ve loved seeing different views of your projects (and your cute dogs and cats wrapped up in your shawls). However, we’re only approving one photo per project, since we will be doing random drawings and such. One photo per project keeps it fair to everyone.
• We generally approve photos about once a week, although I’m doing them more often during Camp Loopy. If you get them uploaded by the deadline, we will make note of it, even if it doesn’t show up as approved right away. If you can SEE the photo in your account page, then you know it uploaded and is just pending approval.
• Do feel free to upload them after the deadline so that we can see what you did, even if it wasn’t done in time! Of course the extra perks are contingent on getting it done by the deadlines. But either way, we still want to see your beautiful work.
• If you have trouble uploading, it could be that your photo is too large. (They are limited to 3 MB). Or try a different browser.
• FOR CAMP LOOPY PROJECT TWO: make sure that your photo shows the pair, not just one. Two socks, two mittens, or two gloves. We want to make sure that you completed both of them. (This coming from someone with Severe Second Sock Syndrome, so I’m only pointing the finger at myself. And that’s also why my Project Two will be mittens.)

Sheri seeingallofyourfinishedphotoshasbeenhazardoustomy”mustknit”list.