No Longer a Rhinebeck Virgin

Boy am I scared to see what kind of hits I get with that post title!

Yup this was my first year of fiber festivals - first MD and now Rhinebeck...and now I'm hooked and am looking forward to next year already. Of course, the main reason it was so much fun was the company I went up with. The lovely Carrie graciously drove me, Jess and Virginia, along the way we met up with the other convoy of Spiders Steph, Jess, Abbie, Veronique, and Lisa. When we got there we ran into some of the other spiders - Nancy (blogless), Amanda, Katie, Iraida, Julsey...ALMOST everyone - our little group is not so little...lol.

Along the way we ran into so many people I am not going to attempt to remember so don't take offense - but I was in fiber euphoria and I mostly remember sheep. It was great meeting everyone although I didn't get to meet a number of bloggers I really wanted to - next year I am going to be more organized and make plans beforehand.

Now you've probably seen pics of the fairgrounds on all the other blogs - so I'll move on to the haul. Amazingly most of the day my money was in my pocket and my bags were empty...but...then I came to the Little Barn tent. Nancy and I broke away from the spiders for a bit and made our way into the tent and I could feel the money melting in my pocket and my bags grow heavy even before I picked up my first item. Needless to say I bought a LOT of fiber.



It's not the best pic so I'll give you a run down of what is there:

- 2 lbs of Commercial Grade Cashmere - super soft, It says it's 60% cashmere, I have no idea what the other 40% is but I really don't care (one lb is for my friend Steph in AZ)
- 1 lb of commercial grade Angora - 80% angora
- 1/2 lb silk/merino
- 1/2 lb angora/merino
- 1 lb of black premium alpaca
- 1/2 lb of purple alpaca to be carded with purple wool for mittens I think
- 1 lb of Mulberry silk

Can we say luxury! You'll also notice a couple of skeins of yarn in the pic here is a close up:



2 skeins of Handmaiden Sea Silk...it is amazing. Michelle brought them for me all the way from Canada! Mama-e and I got 2 hanks each - I wasn't expecting it to be so soft and delish. Now I have to figure out what to do with them.

From 8:30 in the morning on Sat. to 1 am when I got home it was a non-stop blast! I was so tired when I got on the train for my last leg home but not sleepy enough to stop me from using my brand new Golding spindle with some cashmere!



Here's the group pic...some were missing but you get the idea.

Blogger woes, knitting triumphs and a whole lotta yarn

First off let me say I TRIED to post a couple of times before this one in the past few weeks but blogger hates me. I even had a post all done and then when I went to update I lost it all - I couldn't bear redoing that long ass post so I threw my hands up and turned my computer off. It's taken me a little while to try my luck again...hopefully when I submit this time I'll have a real post!

I know what you are all going to say...it's time to move the blog to a better program like typepad or something. I promise it's going to happen, but probably not till next year - we'll see. Oh but guess what? I totally missed my Blogiversary! It was on September 21st, I can't believe I've been doing this for over a year now. I want to say thank you to all of you wonderful bloggers and blogless people who I've come to know and love! (and who put up with my sporadic posting) . A special thanks to my Spiders - without you, this blog would most likely have come and gone by now and I would still be knitting scarves!

On to the knitting triumphs - Sizzle progress...



Being that this is my first real garment I'm pretty proud with how it's looking so far. I knit the body in the round until I had to split for the armholes and the body went along just fine, it wasn't until I had to pick up the stitches for the neckline that I hit a wall. I never had to pick up stitches from a decrease edge before and well, on my first try I did it all wrong. I had little holes everywhere, so I ripped it all out and tried again. The second time was better (I had a reference book with me) but I got halfway through and realized I hadn't picked up enough stitches. Third time (a few nights later) was a charm - YAY. Now you know the extent of my knitting prowess - or lack thereof!

I've also been spinning - A LOT. I had a big custom order a few weeks back spinning 12 skeins of super chunky yarn. MY customer is going to be knitting up a beadspread! I really hope I get some pictures.

Here are some singles all ready for plying with sparkle...

I'm on a burgundy binge!

I've also spun up and plied some luscious creamy alpaca with multicolored sparkle (Sandra - if you are reading this - this is yours!) It's about 250 yards of loveliness - 6.5 oz.



I love spinning alpaca - it's easy to spin with a long draw method instead of the inchworm. It goes faster that way and the singles tend to be a lot more even.

So you wanna see a TON of yarn? This is what I have hiding under my desk at work.



Here you have 112 lbs of yarn! I have a spinning mill in canada who spins to my specifications and this is my latest order...it's going to take a while to ferry this all home on the subway.

Well tomorrow I am off to Rhinebeck and the NY Sheep and Wool Festival - if you see me please stop me and say hello!