Rhinebeck: Part 2

Saturday night ended up being a cozy and mellow evening. My roommates convinced me that drinking lots of wine and eating lots of Chinese food while sitting in the hotel room in my jammies was the way to go, and you know what? They were right. So we gossiped about yarn and the yarn world and cracked jokes and had a wonderful time.

Sunday morning was even more beautiful, and although we had to bid the cool Canadian ladies "adieu," we were still prepared to get our last licks in at the show, before hitting the road. For some reason, we hadn't seen a lot of Philadelphia friends Saturday and we were wondering where they all were. But Sunday was a different story. We ran into the lovely Jody Pirrello Richards and her loyal companion Christy first thing.

Shortly after that, we found Lisa and Purlewe loitering near a display of pumpkins....

and just as we were about to leave, Jim found Craig and Mark (Mark is a love; he very kindly shared his fried pickles with us).

Laura and I were fairly restrained in our shopping, although we did both succumb to the lure of some Bartlett yarn.

In the interests of science, I decided to do an experiment: APPLE CRISP VS. APPLE PIE.

You can see the choices here:

Crisp (Saturday's choice)

Pie (Sunday's choice)

I have to say that I preferred the pie: more apples and the crust was moister than the crisp. (I believe strongly in the scientific method. I am debating whether to do pumpkin pie vs. apple pie next year.....)

Of course, there were all sorts of lovely things to see at the show, and I enjoyed snapping some photos of miscellaneous items that caught my eye. From lop-eared goats

to an entrelac wrap;

sheep of all flavors, colors and sizes;

fiber-related equipment

and handwoven baskets

a baby bun

(This guy was a ham. He absolutely mugged for the camera)

delicious things to eat and drink:

um, Yoda?

but I think my favorite photo from the weekend is this one.

One of the last things we did was walk through the animal barns and see the sheep. Laura seemed to have an uncanny bond with the sheep, and at one point, she had 3 or 4 sheep jostling to try to get her to pet them. I started calling her "the Sheep Whisperer."

The weekend flew, and I've barely unpacked my suitcase and it's time for another teaching gig, this time at Stitches East. So if you're in Hartford this weekend, make sure you stop me and say hello...

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)