Day after NY Sheep & Wool Festival at Rhinebeck

A friend and I went to the New York Sheep & Wool Festival yesterday, and had a marvelous time. I am also totally amazed that I only came home with one skein of yarn, but more on that in a moment. Jana and I hadn't been at the festival more than about 10 minutes when we happened upon the booth of The Fenwick Collection, and immediately fell for their Pacific Jacket. The jacket is made of felted alpaca and wool, and should be nicely warm (however, with the weather in the northeast this fall, I wonder if we will ever have the chance to wear warm things?). The lines of this jacket are very elegant. Jana bought black, and I bought what is, for me, a very unusual color: a muted red (what they call "tomato bisque"). I did not think that it was a good sign that we were spending so much money so quickly. From there, we walked a few steps to the Brooks Farm booth, and because it was early, we were actually able to move amongst their displays. I remember last year, when it was almost impossible to do just that. I wasn't planning to buy any yarn here, lovely as it is, as I haven't yet knitted up the two skeins I bought last year. But Jana drew my attention to a knitted shawl they were displaying, and showed me some yarn she thought would be perfect with my new jacket. Uh oh, this was not turning out well for my pocketbook. But she was perfectly right, this reddish/purplish skein of Acero will look great, once I knit it up. It should be a fast project, as it is done with size 17 needles.

The one category of stuff I was looking for was needle felting supplies. I haven't actually done any of this, but I am intrigued by their use as embellishments, say on a knitted and felted bag. (I have no aspirations to create pumpkins, creatures, or people.) It seems that felting, both needle felting and wet felting, are IN, IN, IN. Supplies and books were everywhere. We saw some lovely wet-felted bags and even some nice scarves. I bought a bit of fiber and roving and a few extra needles, but didn't go overboard.

The Festival didn't seem quite as crowded as on the Saturday of last year. The weather was perfect, though a bit warm for people to wear their warmer handknits. I saw a lot of vests, as well as summer tops. I was delighted to get some compliments on my Fleece Artist vest. The Spinning Room, our local yarn store, seemed to be doing very well selling Avoca throws and scarves from Ireland.

I was delighted to see the Philosopher's Wool booth, which is a good reminder to finish up the cardigan I am working on from them. Both sleeves are done, as is about 1/3 of the body. But it has just been too warm to work on it till now.

The highlight of the day? Could that be when we tried the deep-fried pickles? Well, maybe not!

Last week I finished up some fingerless mitts made out of Noro Kureyon for a friend, and today I did 20 rows on the second of the Composed Mitts. I was feeling a bit upset with the first one, because the increasing done for the thumb made them far too wide for the hand. I figured I'd have to rip out 30 or so rows and redo the pattern. Luckily, Jana figured out that they could be tacked between each finger, and that would nicely take up the slack. This was all I needed to regain my enthusiasm and start with the second one.