One Last Sprint for The Loopy Ewe

 Yesterday evening, Sheri and the Elves sent out an announcement that The Loopy Ewe (TLE) is retiring and the store will be closing. 

I've blogged at length about my affection for TLE. I started buying yarn online from Sheri not exactly at the beginning of her store, but near. I remember buying sock yarn from her and Sonny and Shear and thinking they both had funny store names. Watched her grow the business in St. Louis and then in an unheard of and I believe unprecedented event -- Move The Entire Store to Colorado. Added fabric and discontinued fabric. Brought to my attention dozens of small dyers. I'm sad I never got to visit in person. 

The utter kindness and sheer reliability of TLE are things that have held me as a loyal customer for all of these years. I would order something and 2-3 business days later a Box of Fun with a happy round sticker on it would arrive. Like clockwork. There was always a kind note; the packages were always beautifully wrapped. Even the time someone from the post office had clearly stepped on and broken the box I didn't lose a thing due to their diligence.  

The earliest blog post I can find about TLE on here is from 2010 (https://hedgehogknitting.blogspot.com/2010/02/good-mail-days.html) -- where I'm commenting on having raced to buy some of Sanguine Gryphon's Bugga. That was something TLE absolutely taught me: how to Extremely Efficiently Buy Yarn. There would be a tweet, email, fb notification, Ravelry notice and OFF we'd all go to ravage the digital shelves and pick them clean -- most frequently of Wollmeise but many other dyers as well. And I'm clearly then not commenting on a new phenomenon.  

Over the years, I participated in Knights of the Loopy Table, Loopy Academy, Loopy Graduate School -- netting multiple giant lace shawls and a lot of new abilities out of those 27 projects: better colorwork, beading, gloves.  I may never knit gloves again after doing two pair.  They're warm and beautiful and have four million ends to weave in. Also it confirmed that I do not like entrelac at all. But as a collective, we the customers *learned* and celebrated with each other and were a community. 

Last night, I did the last* sprint for The Loopy Ewe yarn. I got the email just before leaving work and I knew in my heart the Wollmeise would go fast. But I left it til after dinner -- knowing full well just how much Wollmeise I have here at the Chateau. And, as expected, it was *picked clean.*  No matter, I spent a significant amount of time trolling through each of the dyers on the site and putting anything and everything that appealed in my cart.  

It was not a small cart. But it kept shrinking as various things would go out of stock, clearly indicating that-- as with so many yarn purchasing runs before -- I was not alone. It felt like the most poignant way we could send our collective love, buying as much yarn as fast as we could and cart-jacking each other.  

Something that has deeply impressed me forever was The Loopy Ewe's ability to manage their inventory. I don't think I have ever encountered a "oh sorry, someone in the the story purchased this already and so it wasn't on the shelf." I wondered how they would  handle it; unsurprisingly, the store is closed to in person shopping as of this morning at least for a few days while they ship things out to us. 

My last Box of Fun will be here soon. 

*Probably last. I might get something else but things are going so fast.