Falling Down at Rhinebeck

It's easy to fall down at Rhinebeck, (figuratively, not literally).
It is the Mecca of East coast Fiber festivals, and for those of us that go the pilgrimage is an important part of our yearly ritual.

I was relatively good this year, although I really should be allowed to attend fiber festivals with a credit card. Its not safe.

I only managed to get up there on Sunday this year, but it is usually the less crowded day.
This year I made a bee line to the fleece sale, since I knew many of the good fleeces would have been snagged on Saturday. I found two that where reasonably priced for their weight and that had attributes that I've started to recognize. I have only been processing fleeces for less than a year, so my knowledge in this area is still pretty limited. We hiked those back to the car, so we weren't trucking around 12lbs of fleece all day and started making our rounds.





You get to have favorite shops after a while and I always manage to find something I love at Spinners Hill. I really need to buy a sweaters worth at some point, but i always at least get enough for a pair of socks. Actually, had there been enough for a sweater in this colorway, I probably would have bought it.

Next up I found an interesting combed top that will do lovely things when spun. The colorway is Borialus, and all those large sections of color will blend in interesting ways.

I found this crazy gorgeous thing and couldn't walk away. Meadow Maggots is a blend of Polyworth, Bamboo, Silk, and Tencil. Again, enough for socks, but I think this would be a lovely hat or scarf, we'll see what it wants to be after its spun.

And here is where I really fell down hard. Spirit Trail Fiberworks. I fell in love with their Brite yarn last year, the drape and hand on this fiber are extraordinary. It is the absolute perfect blend of wool, silk and cashmere. I passed it up then because I had already blown through a large portion of my budget, but I regretted not buying it ever since. So I fell hard and told the woman checking me out not to tell me how much my total was. Not only did I get enough for a sweater, but 2 additional colors, for a possible yoke design on said sweater AND a skein of sock yarn in purple for Dan's birthday sock, which I designed last week and have been slowly working on. I might want to hurry up with that since his birthday is in two weeks.

The rest of the day was spent eating and perusing. I would like to say that I won't fall down quite so hard next year, but in order to do that I may have to avoid the Spirit Trail Booth...and wool fumes.

In other knitting/spinning news. Just finished another design the other week that will be out in the spring, WOOT!

Also I have yet to get good pictures of my Rhinebeck sweater, next post, I promise.

I finished spinning this. 1188 yards, lace weight from Bittersweet Woolery, bought at Jersey Sheep and Wool. It is lovely and shiny and going into my stash until I can find something worthy of its beauty.

How was your Rhinebeck?