Baaaa!

Yesterday Sharon and I took a drive to a little festival known as the NYS Sheep and Wool Festival - AKA Rhinebeck. This was my first time meeting Sharon, and hopefully not my last. We ate Darrell Lea liquorice and her homebaked, chocolate, chocolate, chocolate cookies and chatted all the way there. She is a great person, very funny and interesting and it was a pleasure to spend the day with her. So, on to the day and a picture heavy post.

I was a Rhinebeck virgin, so "Oh My God!" was pretty much what was going through my head for the first hour or so at Rhinebeck. You've heard the chatter about "sensory overload" and all that. All I can say it that it's true. There is so much to see, touch, smell [well, sniff and smell] and hear. We saw cute bunnies,


petted alpacas,


saw sheep

Okay, not a real sheep. Here's a close up of a sweet friendly sheep.


and goats more sheep. This was a Jacob Sheep [thanks for the correction Karrie.


and llamas (at least I think this one was a llama).


So much yarn to see. And fiber to touch.


Sharon and I met with Cindy [it was great to finally meet you Cindy] and her blogless friends Ebony and Trina for Bratwurst and a beer. We drank warm cider and tasted wine. I bought a bottle of the Brotherhood Riesling.


In a very important moment in my life, I TOUCHED QIVUIT!!


It was better than I thought it would be, and took a lot of effort to walk away from it, but at $40 an ounce, I had to resist the urge.

Instead I took a 'step down' and got some bargain Cashmere and Alpaca - thanks Sharon, for putting up with my near panic at not being able to find Little Barn. I got enough wool to knit my first sweater of my own.



I found my perfect spinning wheel. EDIT: NO I DID NOT BUY THIS WHEEL, IT IS JUST SOMEWHAT SIMILAR TO THE ONE I ALREADY HAVE IN THE PICTURES BELOW. Sorry for the confusion everyone. While I'm going on looks mostly (the wood in this beautiful hand-made wheel was stunning). I saw one in action, and was pretty impressed. They are Robin Spinning Wheels and were stunning.

As for what else I got, I made out well, and can't wait to start playing with everything I bought. Well, if I'm honest, I have already nearly finished spinning this sage Merino. I'm so happy with this merino roving from Carolina Homespun:


I'm really starting to feel confident with my spinning, I actually want to show this to everyone I know before I send it out to my Mum - my big decision is whether to leave it as singles, or to ply it.



I also got some Corriedale Wool roving from them. I bought some tie-dye looking merino/tencel from Sheepshed, it looked so pretty spun up.


Last, but certainly not least, I could not resist this lace weight alpaca from Briar Rose, all 2,500 yds of beauty.


It was funny, because as I was stalking reading blogs last night I saw that Melissa couldn't resist it either, the color she bought is equally gorgeous.

And here's the money shot (the wheel is not one of the purchases, it's a wheel I've had for a while now).