Rhinebeck!

It's that time again! This past weekend was Rhinebeck! I went both days again, this time I got a hotel with my mom instead of freezing in a campground... I didn't get many photos, but it was fun as usual. Here are some of the highlights...

my sister cuddling an adorable, sweet little border collie puppy

part of the llama & alpaca parade

On Saturday I kinneared the Yarn Harlot (yellow sweater in the middle)

and on Sunday Stephanie signed two more of my books (the woman in line in front of me asked if I'd take her photo and took mine in return)! Usually I can't think of a thing to say when I meet an author, and just stand there like a dope basically. This time, right before I got to the front of the line, brilliance struck! Toronto! We just went to Toronto! So I told her that and how much we loved the city and we had a little conversation about how great Toronto is and how walkable it is. phew. Disaster averted. ;-)

Sunday is when they always have authors for signings and presentations. I also met the lovely Kay and Ann, of Mason-Dixon fame!

They were both very nice and friendly. They both signed my first Mason-Dixon book (I don't have the new one yet) and put in their super cute rubber stamps of themselves.

They also did a panel discussion in the afternoon on Sunday. They brought a bunch of gorgeous finished knits from the new book and talked about how the different designs came about and the like.

We tasted a bunch of amazing cheeses, bought wonderful aged gouda for half price, and went to a sheep cheese tasting in the demo kitchen.

I bought a sticker for my car

two cute pottery wall hangings
bad angle on the photo, that's a hand not some freaky thing

and, wicked expensive but amazing sock yarn!

this looks like wool right? But I can't use wool. :-( But no! This is alpaca/bamboo sock yarn! It comes from Maple Creek Farm and is beautiful. It was out of my price range when I first saw it, but after my brother-in-law treated me to dinner (thanks, Justin!) I went back to spend my dinner money on the yarn. I should be able to cast-on with this around January, after I finish Christmas and baby gift making. ;-)

Speaking of wool, something that was very popular around the festival this year - rug hooking. I saw a few vendors last year but it must be taking off in popularity because there were a ton this year. I love the traditional rug hooking and would love to make something but again, with the wool. I even talked to one of the vendors to see if she had a non-wool suggestion. Her only suggestion was the type that uses yarn instead so I could use cotton. That has a different look and isn't exactly what I'm interested in. I did some looking around online and discovered people doing it with jersey/strips of t-shirt! The t-shirt won't really unravel, the same way the wool doesn't. Sometime soon I'm going to give this a try, and I'm thinking about doing some dyeing of the fabric so it would be possible to get some of the more muted historic looking colors that you really wouldn't find in a shirt. I'll keep you posted on this! (I also want to try miniature punchneedle! My sister bought a kit but these were also wool. But this can be done with cotton embroidery floss so I'll be able to try it eventually.)

Rhinebeck part 3 -other good stuff (including the Yarn Harlot)

On Sunday they had a great author tent, I got there right at the beginning and got into the shortest line ever for the Yarn Harlot. Stephanie signed my two books and I got a photo... yay!
Note the Kauni sweater and the combo geeky (in a good way)/knitting shirt. She did a talk after lunch and I even managed to get a seat for that. I worked on a christmas sock during her talk so that one should go very smoothly with her knitting-fu rubbing off on it.

There were other great authors too, but I don't have their books yet so no signings (the Mason-Dixon ladies and Alison to name a few)

Other miscellaneous things to share:
This shop had a funny sign...

Punkin Chunkin!

Barfing pumpkin...
Felted ta-ta's
Over near the history museum building, they had some steam engines and antique machinery set up. Trevor was exploring that stuff while I was at the Yarn Harlot. This machine is cutting wood shingles.

They stencil some with sheep for the festival and give them away for a donation and Trevor got me one! It will be decoration in my craft room soon - even though all of my crafting is sheep free. ;-)

Rhinebeck Part 2 - the animals

We saw dogs doing Frisbee tricks
We saw dogs herding sheep

We saw sheep (of course)

Wait a minute, that's not a real sheep!

This cute guy with the bell is a Navajo-Churro

and this handsome fella is getting auctioned off to a new home.

This guy was really not enjoying his haircut and was really whining about it.
This weird sheep has four horns!

We saw llamas & alpacas
This one had a poodle style haircut! They said it keeps him cool for the summer. ;-)


we saw fluffy furball bunnies
There really is a head in there, it really is a bunny!
my biggest disappointment was that I wanted to see the bunnies being spun off of but didn't. :-(

and, even horses. 1 rider and 2 horses

Rhinebeck part 1 - goodies

Sorry, for the delay in my Rhinebeck report - I've had a mega busy week. Let's see... where to start. How about with what I brought home. I didn't buy very much, I had a particular list of projects I was interested in and I would only buy yarn if it was for one of those projects. I couldn't find anything that fit those projects so I only bought one kind of yarn (plus some non-yarn purchases) which is actually for a new project, not one off my list. oops. Anyway, here's what I got:These are leather purse straps - you really can't see how beautiful they are, but they are lovely. The double set is black (20" for $15) and the single is brown (17" "wine tote" handle for $5). The double set came with linen thread and matching buttons that you use to sew them onto a felted purse. (The thinner strap just comes with the thread, no buttons) The black set is for the Booga Bag I plan on making myself once I'm done with my Christmas knitting; the brown one is for a smaller prettier purse that I have in mind (it might incorporate a fun yarn I just got from a friend, I'll share it soon). These came from Homestead Heirlooms, "Genuine Leather Handles, Leaves & Tie-Ons"and you can also buy through their website.

This uninteresting looking thing is a piece of llama felt. My mom does needle felting where you stick bits of roving onto a piece of felt to make pictures and things, that's a bad description, but whatever. I had wanted to do something like that but needed some felt that I could use. I have bunches of alpaca roving leftover from making my crazy lady and now I have a sheet of felt to do something with it all. I got this for only $3 from the Northern Vermont Llama Co.

And, finally, the yarn.
This is Rayon Silk from Shel B. Yarn and it is so soft and squishy wonderful. Each skein is 4 ounces and I got 3 pink and 3 green and white ($30). They had (machine knit) "blankets" made of squares of all the colors to show off the yarn and how it would work up. They just looked so nice that way that I decided to use it to make a small blanket/throw or wrap.

Those were all my purchases! Oh, we also bought a tub of garlic goat cheese spread from a Pocono cheese company. It was expensive but is very yummy. That brings me to the other type of goodies - the food. We sampled lots of cheeses but that one was the only one we loved enough to buy. We made it to the French's artichoke cart I had heard so much about on Ravelry. yum! Most of the day (Saturday) the line was so long that there was no way we were going to do it, so we got other stuff for lunch. I had the deep fried pickles at Spacey Tracy's and some french fries. We were really looking forward to the deep fried pickles because we loved the ones we had at Quaker Steak & Lube. These were good, but the Lube ones were even better. I also tried some of the deep fried garlic cloves at the pickle cart. They were good, but would be better in pasta or something - too much for me to just eat them (they didn't seem deep fried since they weren't battered or anything). Then at around 4:00 we managed to find the artichoke cart with a very short line so we all got those. I got the French artichoke (battered artichoke with butter garlic sauce) with the beans & greens on top. The artichoke was awesome but I was iffy on the beans & greens so next time I'll just get the artichoke. They have a couple of different kinds, one is like a pizza on a flatbread, and one is deep fried like a blooming onion. I want to try both of those too, actually. On Sunday I picked up a sandwich at Bread Alone (very good, highly recommend the sandwiches and also the yogurt fruit & granola cup I had for breakfast) and brought that in my cooler to have for lunch, and we got these oozing chocolate lava cake kind of things.

Rhinebeck and stuff

I'm on my 4th pair of Fetching and I'm starting to get tired of them. ;-) Too bad I still have at least another 2 pair I want to make! (I don't even have any of my own yet) I have unsuccessfully tried to cast on for Dashing twice now. Tried once, needed a smaller needle. Tried again and decided the yarn just wasn't right. So I'm back to the drawing board on that one. Maybe I will find the perfect yarn at....

RHINEBECK!! Woo, day after tomorrow, baby! We will be there Saturday and Sunday and will be camping out Saturday night. Tentative plans for Saturday include eating artichokes, watching sheep dogs, watching bunnies being spun, and vendor browsing. There is a Ravelry party that night but I don't think I'll make it since my long-suffering husband is already putting up with so much this weekend, I don't think I can subject him to that (which also requires a drive to Kingston). There is also a Ravelry/Blogger meetup both days at Noon near the food stands so I might make it to one of them. Maybe, depending on what it takes to keep everyone as happy as possible. On Sunday the agenda includes a visit to the author tent for some book signings, and then after lunch a talk by the Yarn Harlot! I just saw her a few months ago but who can pass up the chance?

So, my next post will be a roundup of all the fun Rhinebeck things we do, and things I buy, and photos of it all. :-D

Fall into Autumn

Yay, my Fall into Autumn swap pal has received her package! I had fun emailing with Katie throughout the swap and we've got each other friended on Ravelry so we can keep up with projects etc.! :-) Her daughter is a big cutie so I had to include a little something for her too and it turned out to be perfect timing for stampers. It's funny how that works out sometimes.

Speaking of Autumn, we put up halloween and fall decorations last night. Here's a nifty one of our front porch window decorations (I love these things - we had ghosts last year then this year we found cats too) O.k., one more. I love these giant paper lanterns!



On the knitting front... Last week I started a shawl with the misguided idea that I might finish it to wear at Rhinebeck. Yesterday I realized that Rhinebeck is only two weeks away! Yeah, that's just not going to happen. So I set that aside for a bit to work on something more "seasonably" appropriate (post to come). Speaking of Rhinebeck, anybody else going this year? I'll be with family at least part of the time but they are all muggles (not a knitter among them!), so I expect to be left in the dust when they tire of my yarn browsing. The plan isn't set yet as to when we'll be there, I'm trying to convince the husband to camp out so I can go both days (book signings by tons of people and a Yarn Harlot talk on Sunday!) but as of yet he doesn't really even want to go at all. sigh.