While Saturday at Rhinebeck was primarily for socializing, Sunday was for shopping. It has been a while since I bought any fiber of substance at a festival. Last year’s NYS&W yielded only a pound of shetland rovings. I made up for it.
Paige at Modern Yarn organized a group trip from the store to the fairgrounds. I volunteered to drive, arranging to borrow the folks’ 7 seater GMC Envoy so as to get more folk to the fair in fewer cars. It was a great group of women, most of whom I know pretty well from the weekly SnB, including the very talented Ina, as well as the blogless Katie, Nancy, Christine, Karen and Donna. We met at the store at 7:30AM, which meant leaving by 7AM for me to get there on time. I might have trouble getting my arse out of bed to get to work, but a festival? That’s a horse of a different color. I sprung out of bed, got dressed, made breakfast and even had time to stop at Dunkin Donuts for a large coffee before having to hit the road. It was nice driving up with the ladies as they held conversations in a far different way than the twins did the day before, well when the twins were awake that is.
Before I knew it, we were at the fairgrounds. 9:15AM. Unbelievable. After a trip to the ladies room and we were all ready to shop. First stop was building A. At that time of the morning, it was blessedly empty and I made a beeline for Brooks Farm and the Four Play that I’ve coveted for another Clapotis. (Only one of the 3 skeins is photographed. As always, click the pics to make them bigger.)
Next purchasing stop was the Skaska Designs booth. I picked up a skein of 80/20 Silk/Cashmere laceweight and the pattern for the Orenburg Lace Triangle. This is high in the queue for after finishing some of the other existing lace projects (of which I managed 2 rounds on Shetland Tea Shawl today on the train, but I digress again). I don’t look forward to pulling out the ballwinder for this skein as it is 1600 yards! This isn’t going to be my first attempt at an Orenburg shawl. (Someone remind me to show the handspun gossamer merino and beginning of the Pine Tree Shawl from the Designs book.)
After that the purchases all seem rather random and I can’t tell what happened next, but there was much rejoicing. Might was well continue with the trend and show the yarn acquisitions..
I picked up this dark brown Border Leceister yarn to knit myself a gansey.. oh and a pattern for one too! Though I could always use the Beth Brown-Reinsel book that is sitting on the shelf.
There’s this skein of 816 yards of Denim colorway merino yarn. I sooooo loved the color that I just had to get it. Not sure what it will grow up to be, but it will be something. Suggestions would be most welcome. At the very least, it would make a good Clapotis Trois.
Then there is the 8.5oz of 3550 ypp Icelandic Laceweight from Tongue River Farm. I’m set now to make a couple of shawls from the fabulous book. Again, not looking forward to the ballwinder/swift experience with this bad boy either. But it is purty.
What kind of crazy sock knitter would I be without a sock yarn purchase? Rest assured that I ain’t that crazy. While the Socks That Rock was sold out before I even got to the festival on Saturday, there was still some yarn to be had elsewhere. I got a skein of the 50/50 Merino/Tensel from Ellen’s Half-Pint Farm.
While Saturday had really been about the socializing, I did quite a bit of it on Sunday as well. Thanks to the more relaxed feel to the festival, I was able to spend some time with old friends, and made some new ones. I pulled into the field at the same time as Shari and her family arrived. Shari is from the other end of NJ from me and I do so wish they were closer. She’s got amazing kids and is just a wonderful person. I only wish we could see them more often. I saw Nancy and Maribel a few more times as we wandered and spent money. My MY group split up and came back together a number of times over the course of the day as well, each taking the grounds at their own pace.
I met and spent a good deal of time wandering the fair with the wonderful Brooke. We had met briefly on Saturday at the blogger meetup. I found we were taking the barns at about the same pace, as she knit a sock. Go girl. Made sense to chat while we walked. I had a great time and really enjoyed her company. She helped me decide on the Icelandic laceweight and the BL for the gansey. We also hit the Little Barn tent together. The spinning fiber spoils are for tomorrow’s post, don’t want to overwhelm you all at once! All too soon, she had to head out. I then spent the next hour or two fiber hopping with Jessica! Another Jersey spinner! Woot.
Tune in tomorrow for the remainder of the haul…
Craft on!
