Rhinebeck 2: Rhinebeckier

Caution: Picture Heavy Post Ahead!


Rhinebeck this year was seriously wonderful, though how it could be anything else is beyond me. You put enough sheepy things in one place and I'm fairly certain you're guaranteed a good time. Knitting Jenn from DC and I drove up Friday night and made a late arrival at our b&b, the lovely Creek Locks B&B in Rosendale. We slept like babies on one of the most comfy beds I've ever had the pleasure of sleeping in, in a completely adorable renovated 1860s farmhouse. Breakfast was delish! So they've got both the B's in that equation totally down.

We got an early start but to Jenn's infinite dismay were parked further away from the entrance gate than we were last year when we were practically at the gate. I don't know that we will ever be able to rival that spot ever again. I get out of the car, and immediately hear my name. It's our parking spot neighbor who happens to be Shameka from my Sit'n'Knit meetup group. She knit me the crofter's cowl I got at the neckwarmer swap a couple weeks ago which I happened to be wearing over my Enid cardigan (she also made me the best stitch markers ever)! How very fortuitous! Perfect timing turned out to be the theme of the weekend.

After picking up coffee, Jenn and I went about our business at a fairly leisurely pace. Having two days to do it all definitely allowed us to meander and take our time. I was less camera happy this year in the booths, but I made sure to snap shots of some of the funny signs that were posted here and there.

We spent plenty of time visiting the animals and happened upon the "Best Fleece" judging for both the white wool on Saturday and colored wool sheep on Sunday. Both were won by the same farm Pitchfork Farm in Michigan. Definitely looked like some quality fleece to me.
































1. 100_2230, 2. Photogenic, 3. Sleepy Sheepy, 4. What great big horns you have, 5. 100_2200, 6. 100_2203, 7. Holy crap! There's a dog!, 8. 100_2148, 9. Sheep with Bandanas, 10. 100_2108, 11. 100_2171, 12. Itty bitty diva sheep



I spent what I am coming to understand is a simply obscene amount of money. I would actually prefer not to think about it. Instead, I will think of it thus:

Now that's an economic plan I can get behind!

We happened upon the Llama and Alpaca parade with BeBop and Dewitt.


We chronicled our rapidly expanding stashes by photographing the car every time we went to drop stuff off. Trip 1:


End of Day 1:



Towards the end of the day I made a major purchase:



I wanted to compare the single treadle Hitchhiker wheel with the double treadle folding Ashford Kiwi but the two that were in stock were already sold by the time I got to the Merlin Tree booth! Once I got the hang of the single treadle though it was a piece of cake. Now we'll see what I'm able to do with it.

We left the fairgrounds at the end of the day and headed to the Ravelry party where I stared stalkerishly at Ann and Kay of Mason Dixon Knitting fame for most of the night. We froze our butts off but had a great time and I'm glad we hung around for the whole evening because I actually won an awesome raffle prize: A spindle kit from Spunky Eclectic! !

The cupcakes were pretty sweet too.


Day 2 dawned cold and sunny. I had sewn the buttons on my Briar Rose Brompton Cardigan the night before so I actually had a new sweater to wear. I'm quite proud of myself for having finished two sweaters made with yarn I purchased at last Rhinebeck. Not so proud that I didn't actually photograph myself in them in all their finished glory.

The first stop of Day 2 was Briar Rose Fibers and we got there just as sale baskets were being put out so we got some amazing deals on cone remnants. Unfortunately I have no idea which yarns they are or how much yardage but they'll make some great small items.

We bought Jenn a birthday gift: two prints from this booth.


End of Day 2:



Luckily by lunctime on Sunday we had stopped purchasing and didn't need to make more trips to the car. Instead, we ate some lamb chili and watched the sheep dog trials for a while before taking a last spin through the vendor and barn areas where we happened upon these fellas:




















We didn't hit any of the lunchtime meetups but managed to see a lot of people in our travels. A whole lot of people from my local sit n knit groups made it. I bumped (literally) into Maggie at Brooks Farm. Saw Kathe at lunch while waiting in line for lamb kabobs and lamb ravioli. Then there were the various knitting celebs we happened upon. Saw Franklin, Ann & Kay, Amy Singer and the Yarn Harlot.

The weather was chilly but perfect for sweaters. The trees were beautiful and it was just generally a lovely weekend. Can't wait to come back next year!


And just when you got into the traffic leaving and thought you were safe from temptation, there were these ladies hocking bunnies on the side of Route 9.


I don't really want to contemplate the enormity of what I bought, but if you do check it out:

Click to see notes

Pics and FOs

I completed the Charade socks last week but waited forever to photograph because they were way too big. Luckily I learned on Ravelry that Koigu tends to shrink a bit when machine washed as socks. Just in case, I put them in a delicates bag and they turned out really nice. Still a bit big, but what can you do. This has just confirmed for me that I prefer knitting socks toe-up rather than cuff down. I was also a bit irritated that I had so much of my two skeins left over. If this was toe up, I could've just had taller socks and that would've been fine.



Charade by Sandra Park
Knit using Koigu KPM in Colorway 2329
Less than 2 skeins (grrr)



They're cute though. I enjoyed the pattern. It was just mindless enough without being boring to be good subway knitting. Experimenting on the 2 circs was also interesting, although I think I'm going to invest in some long KnitPicks circs to do the magic loop method instead.

This weekend was full of knitting and knitwear. I had a sit'n'knit meetup in Central Park on Sunday and I wore my Tilted Duster and made some major progress on Lady Eleanor. Marina was nice enough to take pictures of me in Big Red.




Is that what I really look like from behind?

And besides my little photoshoot, there were random people (tourists?) filming our group knitting. I can just imagine the things they'll tell their friends when they get home...

You'd never believe the crazy things I saw on my vacation in New York City. There was this naked cowboy in Times Square playing a guitar. Well he wasn't really naked, just in his underwear. But then! There were these women who got together in a big circle in the middle of the park and were playing with sticks and string. It was bizarre! Don't believe me? Look I have it on video!

So yes that was interesting. But my pics look great. I can't wait to wear Big Red to Rhinebeck on Saturday.

Presents!

So a couple weeks ago I won a blog contest over at Yarn Pirate. Another post that makes me desperately wish I did not live in a NYC apartment with a roommate allergic to pet hair (as much as I love her). But wow, I had no idea that it was going to be this awesome a prize:



As a girl who loves pirates, and is counting down the days to September 19th (Yarr!), those needles are just what I needed!


This colorway of the superwash merino is called Sierra and it is probably the first one I would've picked out if I had the chance. I can't wait to cast on. And then have a feeling I will need to stock up on some more of this yarn the minute it's gone.

Thank you Yarn Pirate!

More Ravelry
I just remembered something ELSE that makes me love Ravelry with the fire of a thousand suns. The book/magazine pattern index or whatever it's called. The fact that I can locate a book or an issue of a magazine that I don't own, and instantly see the projects that are included as well as the yarns I need (or yarns I could substitute), FOs from people who've done them, links to blog posts... I could go on and on! This thing is wonderful!

Great day for knitting

So yesterday's rain-induced commute fiasco had one major benefit: I got a whole lot done on the Tilted Duster. I spent 2.5 hours going from Dyckman Street (the equivalent of 200th Street) to 96th Street. Someone fainted on my train while we were stopped between stations because people were crammed in so tightly. Luckily, I had a seat. More luckily, the train was air conditioned.

In that span of 2.5 hours, I knit a sleeve and started on the second for the duster. Then I made the mistake of getting off at 96th when were told the 1 train was running normally. An hour later I showed up at work hot, sweaty, and unbelievably cranky.

Thankfully this morning's commute was lovely in comparison and there was still much knitting on the train.

Ravelry
I've been spending so much time here recently. After gmail, it's the first website I open when I get in to work and I flip over there so often and just browse around that I must seriously be completely useless as an employee.

I find that I spend a lot of time reading the forums for the various groups I've joined, which is nice, but I'm really starting to explore a lot of the different yarns and trying to get a feel for some of the ways that the yarns I like are being put to use. It also helps that when I have stuff in my stash without any clear purpose, I can search for that yarn and see what other knitters have made with it. It's such a great source of inspiration.

My favorite feature thus far has to be the project queue. I need to organize mine a bit better and fill in more details, but just the fact that I have an actual list with pictures and details all in one place is the most amazing and wonderful thing. I love that I'm quickly linked to other people who have done the project and can get their thoughts on what went right and (often, more importantly) what went wrong.

Massive Update?

1. I am not in hibernation. It is July in the Northern Hemisphere.

2. I am taking a microscopy course for conservators this week at the IFA and have little access to email and internet which is torture when you get to #6 on my list. It's me and 12 other conservators from various fields: paintings conservation, textiles and paper, etc. So that was fun when we introduced ourselves and said what we work on. So after people saying "Paintings", "Books", "Anthropological Artifacts" we get to me: "Buildings" Beat that fancy pantses. Actually though they are all very nice. And I am having a great time. Makes me dread actually going back to work. I really need to be a professional academic.

Today we looked at fibers! Wool! Silk! Cotton! Alpaca! Linen! Huzzah! (also bizarro stuff like Kevlar) We talked S-twist and Z-twist. Funny how in reading about spinning I never totally understood what that meant, but thanks to this course I can identify them! We started on pigment identification today and will continue tomorrow. I am, understandably, very excited about this class and wish it could last forever.

3. I am in Ravelry! Got the invite this morning but could not promptly start loading pics and projects due to item #2 above.

4. Socks are progressing nicely. Hope to have them done this week.

5. Bedbug extermination finished (?) Have commenced the unpacking because I refuse to live out of garbage bags for 3 weeks (the most asinine directive ever IMO). Yarn remains in ziploc bags and probably will stay there for quite a while. Made the trip to the Container Store the other day and bought new storage containers for it. Not the pattern I would've chosen ideally, but otherwise I'm loving them. I was warned about the velcro closure on the front in advance but figured I'd be storing most of the stash still in the ziplocs.

6. Finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Many tears were shed. Loved it. Loved it. Loved. It.

More discussion, more depth later. Right now must commence uploading to the wonder that is Ravelry.

When Muggles Attack (on two fronts)

1. First The Times

2. Then the techies

I love the comments on the second article. I'm fairly sure they weren't expecting this kind of reaction. *sigh* only 510 people ahead of me in line.

As for the first, The Times has received an angry letter to the editor from me.

On the knitting front, the socks are almost done. Huzzah! Here's hoping I find time this weekend in between all the Harry Potter reading!