display sticky post outside loop and exclude from loop

Question

I have a "featured" area in header.php that displays the content of the latest sticky post:

$last_sticky_post = get_post(end(get_option('sticky_posts')));
if(!empty($last_sticky_post)):
setup_postdata($last_sticky_post);
the_content();
endif;

problem is that the same post now renders below it in the Loop - how can I suppress sticky posts from appearing at all in the loop?

Answer 1

Before your loop do:

$args = array(
    'ignore_sticky_posts' => 1
);
$query = new WP_Query( $args );
// The Loop
while ( $query->have_posts() ) : $query->the_post();
    echo '<li>';
    the_title();
    echo '</li>';
endwhile;