rhinebeck

best time ever!! don't i say that every year and mean it :)
amythefibergoddess, kathy and i made the trip to the new york state sheep and wool festival, better known as rhinebeck. our trip was scheduled a bit differently this year to accommadate a friday evening engagement that i needed to attend. we were on the road by 8:15 arriving at our hotel just south of albany at 11:30. the room was quite nice and became even nicer when kathy surprised us with a bota box of delicious red wine. knowing we had to get up early didn't seem to stop us from chatting, knitting and planning our adventure. on our way to breakfast the next morning, i had barely uttered to amy (do you think they could possibly be going to....) when they looked at us and said "rhinebeck?" we all laughed at the image of a pack of fiber enthusiats'  recognizing their own.
the drive was lovely with little traffic putting us through the gate at nine-ish.

we had our plan and stuck to it. restroom, then vendors. first purchase was a gradient pack in kashmir from fiber optics in 'midnight gradient'. having finally used my first one, i treated myself to another. no clue what pattern i'll choose, but oh my those colors are lovely.
next was into the whirled, where i nabbed a rhinebeck colorway in polwarth. i knew i had on from last year, but those autumn colors just sing to me. by now it was literally a sea of people, and you went the direction they pushed you. i heard my name, and waved to manise. i couldn't believe that she saw me in that crowd! the lines were insane for several of the booths, and many of our old favorites were not there. we all fell hard for fibers in lisa sousa's booth...

having never seen her colorways before, we couldn't help but add some to our stash. a quick lunch and we were on to the barns. the cool dreary weather didn't dampen our spirits one bit. before long our shoulders were crying so we made a trip to the car to lighten our load.

which made it much easier to finish visiting every booth.

there was even time to wander through the sheep barns ....

we closed the festival and made our way home. tired but on that fiber-high that only rhinebeck can give. can't wait until next year!!