The borg have nothing on the wonder that is Rhinebeck. While I’m still recovering from the two day extravaganza, I thought I’d quickly post some photos of both the event.
But first, Thursday night I saw Stitchy at Stix-n-Stitches in Montclair. Here she is showing us items from the travelling trunk of fuglies. She’s as funny in person as she is on her blog.
So, the festival. Saturday morning, after breakfast, I piled the monkeys into the car and headed north for the Dutchess County Fairgrounds. After a drive of some 90 miles we arrived. The pushing of the stroller got old somewhat fast. We met up with Nancy and Maribel shortly after arriving at 11am. The barns were too crowded for me to do much shopping, but as I was going back on Sunday sans stroller, I didn’t feel too badly about it.
I do have to add as an aside that I was so totally ticked off by the attitude that so many fellow fairgoers showed towards the stroller. I got so many looks that shouted that I had alot of nerve showing up with it. People were rude, obnoxious and inconsiderate, not to mention oblivious wandering right in front of the beheamouth that doesn’t exactly stop on a dime. I said "excuse me" until my voice was gone and even had one woman tell me "there are other people here, you could say excuse me". I laid into her and was nicely backed up by her wandering companion that I had indeed said excuse me. Bitch. The attitude that one shouldn’t go to an event like this if one has to push a stroller is downright wrong. How about the old slow people, huh? Are they more welcome than the strollers? Or the people with canes? They are as much "in the way" as the strollers. Should they stay home too? The intolerance is really ticking me off.
There, that’s out of my system.
When the little ones, who were so unexpectedly wonderful for the day, got impatient, we parted company with Nancy and Maribel. Passing Juno and Stephanie, we made our way around the big barn quickly and then back outside. We met up with commenter extraordinaire: Rachel H! She was so sweet, bringing the twins each a teddy bear wearing a Doodlebops t-shirt! Thank you again Rachel! The kids love the bears and sleep with them every night.
The blogger meetup was definitely the highlight of the day, and the reason I went up on Saturday, even though I’d have to bring the kids for it. The sea of bloggers just totally weirded out the grups and I heard several query as to what we being sold in the middle of the crowd! While the meetup last year was fab, the addition of the Blogger Bingo made it even cooler. Not only license to, but compulsion to go introduce and meet as many people as one could meet. I finally was able to put real faces to a lot of names (not only during the meetup but over the course of the two days) and that has made for a much richer experience.



This is only a small representation of the vast number of bloggers who attended this thing. With my stroller situated in the middle of this crowd, I was able to get BINGO on the I column of my card! WOOT. Anyway, it was a great event and worth the trip.
I made exactly on purchase (besides the entrance fee and food) on Saturday. Predominantly because the crowds wouldn’t let me get near a majority of the booths with the stroller. I did pick up a batt from Grafton Fibers in a purple to pink range (that I spun today, but that is for another posting ).
Exhausted from all the walking and pushing of the blasted stroller up and down the hills, I loaded the monkeys into the car at around 4 and sat in some 20 minutes of traffic waiting to get off the fairgrounds. The monkeys and I went to bed early that night!
I’ll leave Sunday’s trip and resulting stash expansion for tomorrow’s posting!
Craft on!



11 responses so far ↓
1 --Deb // Oct 23, 2006 at 10:15 pm
Let’s not forget the people lugging around SUITCASES. That’s a whole lot more obnoxious than walking around two remarkably well-behaved three years old. (Because they were remarkably good when I saw them!) it’s just a shame that we didn’t get to spend more time together . . . but, of course, unlike so many of the other bloggers we saw, we actually get chances to do that on the other 364 days of the year.
Really, I thought the twins were great. And I’ve heard you say “Excuse me,” any number of times.
2 Sharlene // Oct 23, 2006 at 10:20 pm
I have had similar experiences bringing my kids with me to Stitches in a stroller. I couldn’t believe how rude people were to me when I was pushing a toddler in a stroller while obviously pregnant. I make it a point now to help other moms out whenever possible! I think that is the thing that astounded me the most. I’m sure many of the women who were rude to me were mothers themselves. Shouldn’t mothers/women in general just help each other out when possible? Okay–got that out of my system too!
3 Kathy // Oct 23, 2006 at 11:00 pm
So nice to meet you, Risa! Love that batt — look forward to seeing it spun up.
4 Nancy // Oct 23, 2006 at 11:18 pm
How obnoxious! Glad you gave that woman an ear full. Are you supposed to forgo life? It’s not like the fairgrouds are a fine restaurant or movie theatre on a Saturday night.
Anyway, looking forward to seeing stash enhancement. Must live vicariously.
5 Kim // Oct 24, 2006 at 8:07 am
It was so nice to see you! Bummer about people giving you a bad time about the stroller, especially when the kids were being sooooooooo good!
6 Carole // Oct 24, 2006 at 9:25 am
I’m really glad we finally met. You were so much help with my first couple of wheels and it felt so right to hug you and say thank you for all of that advice in person.
If I had known people were harassing you about the stroller I’d have walked in front of you with a big umbrella and just whacked them out of the way.
7 Chris // Oct 24, 2006 at 10:11 am
That meetup was marvelous! The photo I got of you is one of my favorites. You sure put on a great smile.
8 hillary // Oct 24, 2006 at 10:25 am
Too bad that people were so rude. Sometimes the rudeness seems epidemic.
9 JessaLu // Oct 24, 2006 at 10:50 am
It was great to see you
) I’m with Carole – had I known you were getting harrassed, trust me, I would have taken care of it ;o) Although…it sounds like you did a pretty good job defending yourself *g*
10 Rachel H // Oct 24, 2006 at 2:11 pm
Your children are adorable, and were impressively well behaved in the mad crush that was Saturday. It made me so happy to meet the three of you. (it also amused me to load ‘em up with sugar and hand ‘em back late in the afternoon. See? I’m really not that nice)
Sorry to hear about the crap you had to deal with on the stroller front.
11 Denise/CT // Oct 26, 2006 at 12:56 pm
Nice to meet you Risa and finally beable to pronounce your name correctly. I can back you up, in fact you said “excuse me” to me and my husband. That is when I saw it was a stroller and who was in it! Nice to meet you and those two VERY well behaved children in person.