Moving. We’ve all been there. Begging for friends’ help, borrowing trucks, coveting every useful looking box in sight. It’s never fun, but somehow we get through to the other side to tell about it.

“How many pounds do you think you’ve lifted today?” you ask your brave friends. And any knitter might wonder How much of that was yarn?

Our latest Store Showcase answers that question as Sheri from the Loopy Ewe in Colorado (and formerly Missouri) ponders sleep-related super powers, tells about how knitting with her daughter turned into a full-time job, and explains the webcam in her store.

JP: How did your shop come to be?

I wanted to encourage my daughter to find a hobby when she was in her teens. After trying a few different options, knitting is the thing that she liked and I took it up with her. After we had each made about 30 scarves, we decided enough was enough and it was time to move on to socks.

At the time (seven years ago), there wasn’t much sock yarn at our local shops, so we decided to open a shop that stocked a lot of sock yarn. Since then we’ve moved on to stocking all different types of yarn, but we started with sock yarn and we still lots of that!

JP: You just had a grand opening! Congrats! Was moving difficult? How are you adjusting to the change?

Moving was interesting! We moved 16 tons of yarn and fixtures and I hope to never do that again. On the plus side, it was a move that was entirely our choice, because we wanted to relocate to the mountains. I never get tired of seeing mountains out my office window and on my way to and from work! We love being here.

JP: What can we find in your store? Tell us about a few of your favorites.

So much! We have all weights of yarn for all kinds of projects. In addition, we love cute bags, so we have a lot of those in the shop. We also carry Roving, Patterns, and plenty of fun accessories.

JP: How many employees does the Loopy Ewe have? Has that changed a lot?

Ten employees. For the first year, it was mostly me pulling and packing orders, my husband doing all of our photos, our son designing and maintaining the website, and our daughter helping with the packing when things backed up. It’s nice to have plenty of help now!

JP: What project are you working on right now?

Well, it’s never just one project. I have 3 shawls, 2 scarves, 2 sweaters, a stole, and a sock on the needles right now.

JP: Aside from your awesome employees, is there anyone that has really helped you with the store?

Yes, every single one of our sweet customers who has blogged about us, sent their friends to check us out, written testimonials for the website, talked about us on Ravelry, etc. We are really grateful for the positive word of mouth.

JP: Do you play music in your store?

We do. We have a Pandora for Business account and we have set up different music stations (smooth jazz, movie soundtracks, etc) to rotate. That way none of us get too tired of one particular genre.

JP: Where did the name come from?

I wanted to call our shop “Loop”, and then found out that there is already an awesome shop in PA named Loop Yarn. So I started brainstorming variations, and ended up with The Loopy Ewe.

JP: When do you enjoying knitting most? 

Any and all times and places. Although with working a lot, I only really get to knit a night or two per week and on Sunday afternoons.

JP: You’ve got a webcam for your shop…where did that idea come from?

We have a lot of customers from around the country and in several other countries, who feel like part of our Loopy family to us. We thought it would be fun if they could pop in and share some of the daily activities with us, virtually.

Although we have to be careful of any yarn or products we’re trying to keep under wraps. No sooner do we set something like that out than we start getting calls or comments on Rav, wondering what “that gorgeous blue yarn is on the counter that we haven’t seen before.”

JP: How did you hear about JP bags? 

My friend Wendy of Wendyknits.com told me about them. She is a fan of JP and knew that I would be too (since she knows of my slight bag addiction.) My favorite JP bag is the LJ Kaelms bag in Teal.

What I like about it is allllllll the pockets! And the fact that I can carry two projects at one time, or I can use it as a purse on one side and a project bag on the other. We just started carrying them this year, but we keep selling out and re-ordering more. We have a lot of customers who are bag-lovers, just like me.

JP: Tell me what sock yarns you first stocked when you opened Loopy Ewe. 

We started with Schaefer, Claudia Hand Painted, Regia, Online, Fleece Artist, and Lorna’s Laces.

JP: If you could choose a super power, what would it be?
Is “getting by on 4 hours of sleep a night” a superpower? Because that’s what I’d like. I really am an 8 hour a night person and I could use those extra four hours…

JP: If you could eat or drink anything with no consequences, what would it be?

Pepperoni Pizza and Peppermint Mocha’s. But not together.

JP: What did you do before you were an LYS owner?

I was a Junior High School Remedial Reading teacher before having kids, and then I was a consultant with Creative Memories for 15 years before leaving that to do The Loopy Ewe full time.

JP: What’s one of your favorite parts of owning The Loopy Ewe?

- Walking into the shop first thing in the morning and being overwhelmed (in a good way) by the beautiful colors.

- Seeing all of the projects that our customers are working on (although that has resulted in an explosion of things in my knitting queue).
- Working with yarn companies and our indie dyers – so many smart, talented people.
- Working with the Loopy Elves every day – they’re all a lot of fun.
- And having a business that my whole family is involved in, one way or another.

JP: Your blog is so great! What kind of posts are your favorite to write?

I like our monthly contest blog posts the best, because it’s always fun to read all of the replies to the contest question!

Read Sheri's blog

JP: Coffee or tea?

Coffee.

JP: What’s one of the strangest customer request you’ve ever gotten?

We had a customer send us an old pair of handknit socks once, and she wanted us to find yarn to match it so that she could duplicate them. We didn’t think that was strange, but it was very interesting!

JP: Is there anything your store is known for?

Great customer service, fast shipping, and Frequent Shopper Benefits. We work really hard on all three of those things!

JP: What’s one of your favorite outdoor activities?

Shopping in downtown Fort Collins. (Wait. That probably doesn’t count, right?) Ok – taking walks with my hubby. We try to get in our 10,000 steps every day.

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Can you imagine moving all that yarn? Thanks so much Sheri for sharing about your store! You can catch The Loopy Ewe on Ravelry, follow them on Twitter, like them on Facebook and check out the store blog, which is where that killer tutorial resides.

Know a shop with personality? Do you just love a LYS you think should be featured? Email us or tell us in the comments! Think you’ve moved a ton of yarn? We wanna hear about it too! Tell us in the comments!