Rhinebitches! or How I spent the weekend after Thanksgiving

Here it is, the post you've all been waiting for. The New York State Sheep and Wool Festival held annually in Rhinebeck, NY, known to knitters, crocheters, spinners and fibre lovers in general as “Rhinebeck”, took place last weekend, October 17 - 18, 2015. I had never been before and never actually thought I would ever go. But last year my daughter went with a group of her friends who asked her if maybe her mom would like to come the next year. Well, I never! Of course I said yes. Who wouldn’t? It meant missing a day of teaching, but I could always make those lessons up. Yarn festivals, on the other hand, only happen once a year.

I drove with my daughter and her friend Erin on Thursday as she, Erin, had signed up for a spinning class on Friday morning. We took her car and her GPS system, crossed into the U.S. of A. at Niagara Falls around 1:30 p.m., and promptly got lost. Sure, the GPS seemed to think it knew where it was going, but it wasn’t until we got off the highway to use the toilet in a tiny town (so tiny it didn’t show up on the map) called Elma and actually bought a map, that we realized how off course we were. Once on the I-90 headed east, we made much better time and arrived at our destination at 12:30 a.m., almost exactly 12 hours after we had left my daughter’s place. Not an auspicious start.

The converted coach house which served as our accommodations was lovely. There was a large room which the three of us girls shared and another room down the hall which was taken by our fourth knitter with her husband and toddler. The bed I shared with my daughter was extremely comfortable, Erin had no complaints about the pullout couch and we were surrounded by trees decked out in their glorious fall colours. It was pretty darn picturesque.

Beforehand, Joanna (the toddler’s mother) had designed a logo for us to put on a T-shirt. Luckily mine arrived in time and I model it for you in this photo. You’ll notice that there are no dots on the i’s and no point for the exclamation. I added rhinestones which I found in a dollar store.

Here are my daughter and I in our matching garments.

Note that we have our knitting in our laps, and we’re both wearing knitted skirts and socks, although you can’t see hers in the photo. It certainly was a good weekend to view lovely handknits. Everyone was decked out in their finery.

There were, of course, many, many yarn vendors on site. Many. So many, in fact, that it was quite overwhelming. Every fibre you can imagine was represented, from alpaca to yak. If there were such a thing as zebra yarn, it would have been there, too. Below is my haul.

Starting at the top is a box of Fiber Optic Yarns Paintbox Gradient Kasmir Yarn, 80% merino, 10% nylon, 10% cashmere. Directly underneath it are two skeins of Bittersweet Woolery Hero in two different colours because I plan to make myself another Biarritz Cloche that will be warmer than the one I already have in cotton. The Hero should prove to be perfect for the task, being 75% wool, 25% nylon.

In the middle is a single skein (Note: They’re all single skeins) of a brushed mohair and silk blend, the colour of which is not really done justice by that photo. Maybe this works better:

I picked it up and said, “This should be called ‘Mist rising at dawn over autumn field’,” and a woman standing next to me asked, “Are you a poet?” “Actually, I am,” I replied. But the assigned name for this yarn, Sea Oak, is almost as good as the one I came up with. There are only 28 grams of it, so it’s going to have to be for something special.

Next is a skein of 100% cashmere by Xanadu. It was so incredibly reasonable, only $35 US, that I simply could not leave without it. I later found out, by talking to a goat farmer, that cashmere is so expensive because a goat only produces about six ounces of it a year; so I felt I’d got a rather good bargain. At the bottom of the picture is laceweight tencel, a fibre I have only heretofore seen blended with others. There’s a lot there and it’s a gorgeous colourway, and I know that I’ll find a project for it somehow.

Off to the right is a skein from Skaska Designs of 55% silk, 45% angora in one-ply cobweb. I love angora, its rabbity softness and all, but every sweater I have ever had made from it has made me itch. I’m taking a chance here, I know, but this stuff is not fluffy and it looks absolutely perfect for making a Shetland-style wedding ring shawl. 

Tucked in between the Skaska and the other wools are three bundles of silk hankies. These are layers of unspun silk which can be pulled apart and stretched into yarn for knitting. I’m very excited about trying them out. The last two items are a fixed circular knitting needle (2.25 mm red Chiaigoo) and a silverplate spoon handle made into a shawl pin. I think I did rather well for myself.

I am not a spinner, but my friends are. If I were a spinner, I would have definitely sprung for some silk and yak roving that was braided into long ropes. The sheen off the fibres was enticing, as well as the softness. Joanna and Erin both got some. There was a whole section of one large building devoted to sheep fleece. Joanna and Erin went halvesies on a huge bag full of the stuff. My daughter spent a good half hour with an E-spinner, and then again with a spinning wheel. She also learned how to use the Charkha wheel her boyfriend had got her a few years ago which had remained a mystery until now.

No country fair is complete without livestock. Rhinebeck had lots and lots of livestock: sheep, goats, llamas, alpacas, paco vicuñas, rabbits and maybe something else, although I think that just about covers it. You could watch sheep getting sheared, pet baby goats, and stick your hand through cage wires to feel the softness of angora bunnies. But the best time of all was the “leaping llama” contest.

Imagine high jump for farm animals, if you will. The bar starts off quite low. Even this tiny goat was able to get over without knocking it off the hooks.

Then it got raised a bit, and it was easier for the tiny goat to walk under than step over.

Some animals simply refused to cooperate.

For the larger animals, like this alpaca, this level was a piece of cake.

By this time my knees were getting pretty sore from trying to take pictures through the fence, so I gave up. But I did get one great action shot before I called it quits.

When the bar was placed at the highest level, there were only three llamas left in the race. None of them actually made it over without knocking it off, but they gave the prize to the one who’d won last year because she came the closest to a successful leap. 

Here are a few of the leapers close up.

I also give you the fluffiest bunny I have ever seen in my life.

There was also a group of Peruvian musicians performing on traditional instruments. I imagine they must have been rather chilled, as it was snowing a little when we came out after watching the leapers. The drummer certainly doesn’t look very happy.

Our trip home was uneventful. I drove the first leg, Erin drove the second, and then I took over right at the end. She still had another half-hour behind the wheel after dropping my daughter and me off at her front door, exactly 60 hours after we left. 

Next year I will bring more money, warmer clothes and more comfortable shoes.