In which Carol sees lots of friends, buys lots of roving and eats at the diner again

Now that you know all about Swatchy's trip to Rhinebeck, let me tell you a bit about it from my perspective.

Every year, I think "Wow, Rhinebeck cannot possibly be better this year than it was last year because I had such a great time last year," and I try to temper my expectations so I won't be even a teeny bit disappointed. This year, my expectations were even more measured; all of the weather guessers forecasters were calling for cold weather, rain -- lots of it -- and even snow. I had visions of sodden blue jeans, cold toes and stringy wet hair, punctuated by the smell of lanolin and wet llama poop.

And yet? I had an amazing time, I met some wonderful new people and got to see some wonderful people I already knew, I made a few most excellent purchases (three fleeces to be processed for BBF and an incredible bag full of silk/border leicester/mohair that is in the dyepots right now.....), and it hardly rained at all. In fact, there was not a drop of precipitation at Saturday's show, and only drizzly rain on Sunday. My theory is that wherever VeVe goes, the sun shines -- a kind of polar opposite to Schleprock.

As always, I attended with my faithful traveling companions Jim and Laura. Here is Jim, wearing the scarf I designed for him (I am hoping to make the pattern available soon)


and here is Laura, modeling the gorgeous stranded sweater she designed for the current issue of Vogue Knitting (I am sorry for the mirror glare; I tried to crop it out):


Saturday morning, we were up early and ready to go. One of the first things I did was to scout out the fleece options. I found three beauties and dropped them off for processing, thinking I'd try to beat the rain. Well, lucky for us, it never rained, and after I got my fleeces out of the way (I'm always thinking about you, Fiber Clubs...) I had time to socialize.

So many of my favorite fiber people were there, including Hyphenated Carol (posing with Mindy, Laura and Thea):


friend of my oldest kid, Somebunnyslove:


Kristen Rengren, who was signing her fabulous book Vintage Baby Knits at the author's tent:

and of course my love, QueerJoe:


One of the best new friends I made was the inimitable Ali P, who I now dearly love and want to visit all the time:

and of course there was Rav-stalking (here is Jess):


But one of my most important tasks was to help hand out the cutest little mini-skeins of Nordique, VeVe's fabulous new yarn, to passers-by, like this crew from Philly:

(hi, Lisa! hi, Purlewe! hi, Purlewe's auntie!).

As a special reward for all my hard work, I got to share this kielbasi with Veve at lunch:


While we were noshing, the lovely Sarah came up to show off her cap-sleeve lace sweater, from the fall St-Denis Nordique magazine

(That's my favorite color of Nordique, by the way: Blue Eggshell.)

After lunch, it was more socializing, including some LSGers from Ravelry


and a woman with an incredible Norah Gaughan sweater (from a prior Vogue Knitting, I believe):


Either that, or she's flashing the apple crumble booth.

I saw awesome Knittinkitties (another Laura),

and then had dinner at the diner with some of the usual suspects, including Mark, John, Ted, Marilyn & Gerry, Laura, Jim and the guys whose names I am forgetting (I'm sorry; my children ate my brain), including the couple who didn't make it in the photo but were sitting on my right and were delightful dinner companions (NYU artistic guy and banking-guy-whose-cat-licks-his-head).


And all of that was just Day One...