Saturday @ Rhinebeck

Nancy & I met at our hotel with trunkloads of varying types of coats and boots in an attempt to anticipate any weather pattern. We suited up and headed over to the festival. This time we did advance planning, sorting out our Ravelry queues and doing our best to go with a purpose rather than great yarny googly eyes.

Our first stop was Brooks Farms Yarn. This was Nancy's favorite booth last year. Right when we entered the booth I heard my name and there's Traveling Ann.
She had an armload of red yarn and one skein of yellow/orange yarn. She asked me if she should buy the orange yarn. I didn't miss a beat. "No", I said, "you never do anything with that color and friends don't let friends do random acts of yarn".


Everywhere we went there were explosions of color. True to her word, Nancy whispered "no roving" when we past any. She was kind enough to let me take a picture.
I really liked this sock display. On it were samples of patterns by Lucy Neatby and Cookie A.
Shocking as it may sound, I bought this beautiful skein of purple silk/merino lace weight yarn. I'm going to knit the Whisper Cardigan from Interweave Spring 2009.

Then we were really hungry. Nancy bought something simple where there wasn't any line. I went on the Artichoke French line, which of course was the longest line in the food court. There were people on the line who didn't even know what they were on line for; just figured it must be good. I assured them they were doing the right thing being there and told them what they were waiting for. However, by the time Nancy was done eating, I had barely moved. I abandoned the line and we went in search of more yarn.

Laura asked me to go to the Oak Grove booth in search of a particular colorway because she was short yarn in a wrap she was knitting from buying the yarn 2 YEARS AGO. Always eager to help out, we checked it out and remembered that this was another booth Nancy liked last year. She also scored Laura's yarn. The village voted and found 2 perfect skeins that matched the sample of yarn I brought with me. What are the odds? The Yarn G-ds were smiling on Laura.

While in the booth I found this beautiful fingering weight yarn. I swear I had a plan for it while under the influence of yarn. Maybe Nancy wrote it down. This year she was the note taker.

OK, so now I was seriously hungry. So what's a girl going to do?

Stand on another ridiculously long line to wait for chicken pot pies. I couldn't find them last year and was determined to have one this year. I broke out my knitting, picked purposely for it's easy portability and ease. Knitting Central's Signature hat knit with 2 skeins of Koigu. While on line I ended up giving a mini demonstration of continental knitting.
Nancy sat nearby and began Judy Becker's magic cast on for socks. In between eating their pot pies (lucky!) Nancy got involved in a magic cast on discussion. The chicken pot pie was totally worth it. The guy said they must sell at least 1200 pies!

Now full, and having found enough yarn to feel content (for the moment). We went to visit the animals. We found the sheep.


I like these 2 guys on the left, that are standing up and surveying the area. Gossipy Sheep? The sheep on the right had been recently sheared and was wearing a new coat. :)
In amongst the sheep was the extremely fluffy Angora Rabbit. It was hard to get a good picture. This is actually a picture of it's face.
Then we found one that we could touch. OMG was it the softest ever! I didn't want to leave it.


At the end of the day, we decided to give the Artichoke booth another shot. The line was a manageable dozen people. See how happy Nancy is about this?! Silly girl that she is, she thought we could share one. Yummy. I know I was happy. It was like meeting up with an old friend.



All yarned out and fed, we decided to call it a day. And what do we see on our way out, but KANGAROOS! This one was seriously hyper. I think I was as amused as the kids watching.