Rhinebeck Adventure Report

What a fantastic weekend! After a rainy drive up to NY state with rain continuing into Saturday morning, we arrived at the Dutchess County fairgrounds for the NY State Sheep and Wool Festival in good spirits. We picked up fiber that had been processed by McClellan's Frankenmuth Woolen Mill as well as Zeilinger's Woolen Mill for pick up at this festival and got them squished into the car in the rain. We had a great time talking to John from Frankenmuth while we were there and had more occasions to visit him during the day (wink wink). These hand dyed fibers will be on the business website as soon as I get the chance to weigh, divide, and photograph the rovings. I began spindling the roving that I actually liked the least, and it's drop dead gorgous as yarn! Go figure! The picture you see is the pile of processed hand dyed rovings sitting in my living room after we got home last night. Of course, it's all awaiting my attention. Mark and I enjoyed looking at the various sheep breeds there, the Tunis being this year's featured breed. We visited our favorite vendors as well as some of my suppliers, and met a lovely lady by the name of Claudia that
produces "Heal my Hands" all natural lanolin based hand, lip, and nose creams which will be featured on my business website hopefully within the next couple of months. She is shown here (sorry, I didn't know her eyes would be closed in the picture) holding a purse she made of some of the rovings she purchased from Kendig Cottage. It's a beautiful project! We ran into Risa and her delightful twins while walking around looking at the vendors. She was accompanied by Nancy of Knitting Wench fame who was truly delightful. We were lucky enough to run into Risa and Nancy later during the day, along with Elaine Harvey with her friend Judy. The twins were having fun running around and being 2 year olds, and Mark and I were enjoying them too. Ok, I'll admit, there was a visit to the fleece sale in there somewhere. I looked up to see one of my favorite people, she who helped suck me back into the fleece vortex, Lady Vee, with her beautiful daughter! I'm not sure if she made any purchases or not as she slipped out while I was waiting in line. For personal use, I picked up a beautiful white Merino as well as an Eggshel colored slightly red "Moorit", (which went straight to John of Frankenmuth Woolen Mill to make roving from) and snagged some beautiful fleece for my future dye runs for the business. I purchased a "few" Shetland fleeces from my favorite Farm as well. Mark and I ended a wonderful Saturday by meeting Myrtle Dow and her beautiful lambs, one was a CVM, and one was a Wensleydale cross. We had a delightful conversation and I truly enjoyed meeting her, she's fantastic! Of course, never one to turn down a beautiful CVM fleece from Myrtle, there is a gorgeous Chocolate brown one awaiting washing in my basement now! I have just the pattern for it, along with a light grey lamb fleece I'd gotten from Myrtle earlier and a white one I purchased elsewhere, but it probably came from her and Roy's farm. We also managed to say hello to Jonathan Bosworth, Linda Diak, Tom Golding, and many of our other favorite folks. I purchased a pound of Icelandic Roving from Diane Golding at Meadowsweet Farm Icelandics which I can't wait to spin, it's so soft and wonderful. Sunday, Mark and I came back for awhile on our way back to Maryland. We just happened to run into Cindy from Foxglove Fiberart Supply, who has always been such a wonderful person to talk to via email, I'm so very pleased that we got to meet her at last! She's even nicer in person! It was a chance meeting at a vendor's booth, but I feel very fortunate that I got to enjoy talking to her before she went back to Washington State and us to Maryland. Speaking of going back to Maryland, we rented a car since the Mini-van was in the shop, and here's how it looked. I always enjoy car trips because Mark drives and I get the opportunity to knit, as happened in both directions on this trip. I now have 3 projects going and worked on all three, depending on my level of tiredness and mood. We stopped for lunch at a place in Poukepsie called the River Station, and this was the view of the Hudson River out of their window by our table.