Rhinebeck!

How quickly a wonderful weekend with dear friends flies by! I got back from our annual trek to Rhinebeck last evening, and although I was looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again, I already missed my fibery friends dreadfully. Here's the recap, so if you weren't able to make it, you can experience it vicariously.

The first year we went to Rhinebeck, faithful companion Jim and I

got up at the crack of dawn on Saturday and went for the day. We quickly realized that (a) we are too old to get up at 4 a.m. every year and (b) we needed to spend more time there because it was so fun, so the next year we got a hotel room and stayed over Saturday night. A year or two after that, lovely & uber-talented Laura Grutzeck had been coming with us and we all decided one night at Rhinebeck wasn't enough. So we added Friday night to our hotel reservation and made it a weekend.

We left midday Friday, and the weather was kind of misty and overcast, with the sun peeking through from time to time. Our drive went pretty quickly, and we arrived before 5 p.m. We met up with my girl-crush Veve and her wonderful friends Tara and Kate, and ended up at the Olympic Diner for a quick dinner. We hit the hay early so we would be able to get to the show nice and early.

We woke up Saturday to beautiful sunny skies...(later on, there were short but drenching rain showers, though)

and before we even left the parking lot, we saw Tara and Kate.

Tara just finished her lovely sweater the night before so she modeled it for us (she has previous modeling experience, you know).

We were early enough that we didn't get caught in too much traffic (we heard that some friends were stuck in a gigantic line of cars a little later in the morning -- feh) and we were very pleased to be strolling the grounds while the sun shone and the leaves gently fell.

When I first get to Rhinebeck, it's such a giddy feeling: where to go first, looking for friends along the way, and simply soaking up the great feeling of being surrounded by fellow fiber freaks....So we wouldn't be completely overwhelmed, we adopted a somewhat systematic approach, starting at one end of the barns and working our way through them. It's always interesting to see what new vendors are there, to greet old friends from past years (we always make out way to Maggie's Soaps, because she is a lovely person and the soap is divine!)

and one of our first stops was, of course, to see the inimitable Dr. Mel

wearing his customary kilt and thereby gracing us all with a view of his sexeh legs.

Not to mention the great Icelandic sweater....

We also had the pleasure of running into Amy Detjen

and Rhichard from happy Koiguland (also showing off his great gams)

Of course we saw all sorts of adorable animals, from sheep

(I think this is a Teeswater) to goats

and bunnies

and we ran into several alpaca and llama parades

We made a special stop at the book tent, where I picked up a signed copy of Teva Durham's recent book (I'll do a review soon -- it's fabulous)

Ysolda was signing her new book and showing off her new 'do:

while Ms. Clara Parkes was selling out (SELLING OUT!) of her new book (one of the next books I'll be reviewing)

Lunch was my favorite Polish food from Janek's

(stuffed cabbage rolls and pierogi).

We didn't see a lot of folks from Philly on Saturday, and somehow I completely missed Marilyn and Joe (very unusual) but we still managed to have a most excellent day.

Jim didn't want to leave -- can you blame him?

(Tomorrow: Day 2 recap)