Rhinebeck

October 23, 2006 at 8:25 am | Posted in knitting, spinning | 2 Comments

This is me and my friend Stephanie (sorry, grammar police, my friend Stephanie and I) as we are about to enter the New York Sheep and Wool Festival, commonly known as Rhinebeck. We left on Friday at noon to drive down to Saugerties, NY, which is where we were staying. The scenery

is gorgeous.

The only fiber festival I had ever been to previously was some rinky-dink thing in Canby, Oregon (not Black Sheep, duh), and though I knew that Rhinebeck was going to be a HUGE event, I wasn’t really prepared for the insanity. We got there at 10 on Saturday, the time it was scheduled to open. We headed straight for The Fold, proud purveyor of Socks That Rock, and it was there that I glimpsed true fiber fever. Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures, but I can tell you that by the time we got there, at 10:15 on Saturday morning, that booth was already becoming picked over, and the line to pay was crazy. We waited in line for 20 minutes (during which time I purchased a gorgeous Corriedale batt from Grafton fibers, pictures coming soon), and I have heard accounts of people waiting in line for upwards of an hour to pay. Fiber-induced insanity, I tell ya!

Rhinebeck isn’t only an opportunity to empty the contents of your wallet/checking account/children’s college fund, it’s also a veritable field day of livestock. Check these guys out:

And this is one of my favorite pictures–a close-up of a Lincoln fleece, still on the owner’s back: