Rhinebeck was a two-day event. Saturday, as I understand it, was
ca-rowded. As in Seriously Crowded. Sunday was not. Why the difference in attendance? Weather! Saturday turned out to be a beautiful New England autumn day (abet a bit cold), and Sunday was raw: wet, cold, and a bit breezy. I was there on Sunday, complete with thermal underwear and a bag for toting my goodies. Mini~Dee was with me too, wearing one of my crocheted hats (Mini~Dee is at the "hair" age, meaning to to have her wear a hat that messes up her hair -- and!! -- to wear said hat
all day, *is*a big deal. LOL She looked great wearing it, and got lots of compliments. Should I mention she wore the hat to school today? Completely her decision? LOL; it must be a tween/teen thing!) Joining us in the fun was
Nancy. She was geared up for the raw weather and shopping too!
We arrived around 11:30 and went directly to the Authors booth. We met up with Mary Beth Temple and her daughter Little Loopy. Little Loopy and Mini~Dee are friends, having met a few years ago at one of the CGOA Conferences. With Little Loopy joining us for shopping bliss, we left Mary Beth behind so she could autograph her books.
Our first stop was a visit to The Rams Horn. I purchased the yarn basket earrings I mentioned in my last blog post. As earrings, they feel a bit heavy for what I normally wear. That's OK; I have another plan for them. (More on that in a future blog post.) Then we checked out all the other vendor goodies. One thing I noticed, thanks to Little Loopy tuning me into it, is that the 1980's are coming back. For those of us old enough to remember the 1980's that spells out a 4-letter word worthy of blinding our retinas. Yes, the word is
NEON.
(do your eyes hurt reading that? Yeah, mine too.)
There was
NEON colored roving, hand spun hanks, and funky skeins of yarn EVERYWHERE! And on this dark, raw, rainy day, the
NEON really showed up! ((and you all thought my
yellow nail polish I wore a few weeks back was
bright! Ha!)) I did not buy any of the
NEON yarn goodies, but Little Loopy did. It will be interesting to see what she does with it. :)
One new vendor I found nearly freezing to death (they're from North Carolina and not used to our chippy weather here in the Northeast) was The Art of Conni Togel. This vendor had paintings & prints of wooly humor ... and I bought one small print. In fact, it
was this one I had purchased, to hang in my future Yarn Studio; it made me laugh so hard!
(No, they won't be at Stitches East next weekend, nor will many of the vendors there. It seems there is some sort of huge event going on in North Carolina next weekend, reportedly bigger than Stitches East. Unfortunately I don't recall the name of the event, but perhaps one of my readers from NC knows & will post the name of it here?)We took a carriage/horse ride, ate yummy food & fudge, and hooked up with other crocheters: Leslie, Andrea, Diane,
Barbara, Jennifer, and
Lily Chin too! We were given some free mini~hanks of yarn from
St. Denis; and they gave us a bunch of pins to hand out to our CGOA Chapter members. We also attended the
Ravelry Lunchtime Meet-up. This was my first time meeting Mary-Heather, Casey & Jessica, but not the first time seeing them in person. The other times there were just
too many people around, so saying a proper hello was just out of the question. Which reminds me, I need to get info to Casey & Jessica about
the Big E ((wouldn't it be cool if they had a booth there next year on Massachusetts Day???)).
Soon, too soon if you ask me, the announcements came on officially ending this year's festival. Just before we left I managed to
buy a hank -- the only yarn I purchased -- from Brooks Farm Yarn. It's a sweet mixture of wool, silk, and viscose; "blue jean," golden, and green in color. I'm not sure what it will be when it wants to grow up, but judging on how much Mr. Dee is admiring it, I'm guessing it might end up to be something for him. And yes, this is another vendor who will be attending the North Carolina thing-y next weekend.
We had a lot of fun, and even though it's a year away, we're looking forward to the next one already! :)
talking about my adventure into knitting last week. I told them my knit history: how I had tried learning how to knit from my Grandmother, from friends, and from some of the best knitting teachers in the business -- and how, unfortunately those lessons did not take. It didn't click* until I figured it out from a crocheter's perspective! After all, my brain is wired for crochet! (*ETA: hahaha, I did a knit pun: click)
