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.)

The GD Shaker Rug

Back in January I got the Lion yarn catalog and pattern guide-thing. I saw this great Shaker-Inspired Rug and decided it would be a great wedding gift for my sister's wedding in April. I even paid for the pattern, which I usually try to avoid doing (well, it was only $4). (Speaking of buying patterns, Lion has a nifty thing where when you buy one of their patterns online you can choose to have it shipped to you (shipping charge) or to immediately receive it by pdf. That's great! I love instant gratification.)

Anyway, I got the pattern and went shopping for the yarn. The pattern (of course) called for Lion Cotton and Cotton Ease. Local stores only had them in a few colors, not the many needed for the pattern so I used mostly Lily Sugar 'n Cream with a few Lion Cotton and Cottons Eases - whatever it took to get the closest colors to the pattern. (bonus - Sugar 'n Cream is a lot cheaper)

I really wasn't thinking this through when I picked the pattern - do you see all those color changes? Yeah, you change colors every 3, 5, or 8 rows throughout the pattern. That translates to roughly 4 million color changes. Which is annoying enough when you are working it, but then when you are done? That's right, 4 million ends to weave in. Plus it was all double crochet (I think, I don't have the pattern in front of me. It was all one stitch whichever it was) so it was pretty boring. Actually, as annoying as the color changes were, they were the only thing to break the monotony. It took me a few months to do the crocheting since I could only force myself to do a certain number of repeats each night. When I finally got the crocheting done, I wove in all 4 million ends.

Then I looked at the pattern. Then I tried to form it into the circle. I realized the pattern didn't tell you to weave in the ends until after you sewed the circle together. I'm not positive if that's why it was incredibly hard to get it to form into a circle, or if that's just the way the pattern was. But, I spent a few nights trying to get it to go which ended in tears with me thinking the months of work were for naught. A co-worker who is a long time knitter suggested wetting it down to sort of block it into shape while forming it and sewing it. Thank the FSM that worked. I wet the whole thing down in the sink then kept spraying it with the BadKitty spray bottle while I worked. I thought I had it done and left it to dry overnight (pinned to a towel). Nope. The next day the center spiral (the hardest part to spiral) was all bumpy. I had to cut the thread holding that part together and try resewing it. After that, it came out pretty good and I just stopped looking at it. I knew I would be the harshest critic and it looked as good as it was going to get. So there it is! I do really like it and would like one for myself but won't be subjecting myself to it anytime soon.

Oh, one more pattern change - the outer edge you crochet after it is sewn together was supposed to be done in pattern with the color changes. Unt uh. I was done with the color changes so I did the whole trim in black.