Rhinebeck

Truly an extraordinary day in every way I could have imagined.

Brief Recap
I picked Franklin up at the B&B and we drove for a little over 2 hours (he's not one of those passengers that insists on stopping to pee at least once an hour, thank goodness) and arrived about about 10:15.

It was rainy and chilly but our handknits, raincoats and visored caps kept us relatively warm and dry. Franklin's sweater looked better in person than his picture of it. His raglan shaping, his decreases and his Fair Isle lettering were all done as well or better than I would have done them. All were amazed.

We met up immediately with Marilyn who was looking for Kathy and Selma outside the MAIN gate. We decided to go into the festival and look for them, and found them almost immediately.

We began our shopping and I found yarn that I had to buy at one of the first booths I came across. I then found roving in the next booth and more yarn in a booth shortly after that.

With about 10 more barns of booths left to shop in, I figured I better slow it down a bit.

Walking out of the first barn, the rain had cleared up, it got sunny and warm, so I took a trip to my car to drop off my purchases so far and my jacket and sweater.

I don't have time this morning to blog about all that I did end up buying, so I'll fill you in with my next post. But here are some pictures of the knit-blog group.


Franklin, me, Selma and Marilyn


Bad picture of Marilyn and Lisa


Carol S. critiquing Franklin's workmanship


Lisa and Kathy displaying Marilyn's lacework shawl (stunning, btw)


Selma and Frankling with blog fan who wishes he had a brain

Meeting Blog Readers
This year, I was determined to take pictures of any blog readers that introduced themselves
and make sure to mention each one individually.

That became virtually impossible very quickly.

I just knew I wouldn't be able to remember them all. So as not to insult anyone by excluding them, I won't mention any. But it was extremely nice to meet some of the the folks whose screen names I see so often and even not so often. I'm grateful that Corvus mentioned that he and the Village Knittiot stopped by. Wait till you read on Franklin's blog what they did for him. They were extremely nice folks

Unbelievable
When preparing for Rhinebeck, I have to admit, I had one grave concern.

Since I would be seeing Gil, the guy that makes Robin Wheels, I knew I would be asking about the status of my wheel order. I was truly worried that he would look at me with a perplexed look and say....hmmm....no, I have no order from you. I wasn't at all worried that he would have lost my $100 deposit, but terrified I'd have to wait another 18 months.

Quite the opposite happened, he looked at me and said, "You're Joe, right?"

Wow!, I needn't have worried at all.

I waited for him to help teach a newbie spinner how to spin on one of his wheels, and then he told me he had something for me, and to take a look at the plaque on the spinning wheel on display.



Yes, I am the proud owner of my very own Birds-Eye Maple, Robin Spinning Wheel.

You can't imagine how excited I was. I was giddy and giggling like a little girl (I know, it was pathetic). At one point, I was actually shaking with excitement.

In my next entries, I'll post about Rhinebeck purchases, spinning on my new amazing wheel and knitting progress (or lack, thereof).