Sheep and Wool! Sheep and Wool! Sheep and Wool!!!

What a fabulously fibre-filled, frolicingly, fall foliagely flavoured weekend we had in Rhinebeck!

Thanks much to Jill R who drove the magic bus northwards, stopping briefly at her childhood abode to pop in on her parents. Her Mum showed off a couple of her knitting projects including this incredible lace dress with gazzillions of sequins:

We would be staying over at her parents' country house to be near the festival so it was so nice to be able to meet them and say thank you in person.

Even though it was past peek leaf peeping time in that locale, the colours were stunningly beautiful and put us all in the right state of mind for buying warm and snuggly yarn for this season's projects, (but let's face it....when aren't we in the right mood for yarn buying???)
One of the trees outside of the house had these gorgeous red leaves and orange berries that we all had to pose for photos using it's foliage as a backdrop - Here's Ruth and Jill A:



A group shot of Jenn, Johanna, Jill R, Moi, Katy, Ruth and Jill A:

and some of that frolicing I was talking about:


My statagy was to scope out the yarn on Saturday, compare prices, think carefully about projects, sleep on it then buy only what is completely necessary on Sunday. This didn't quite work out as the festival was much busier then when I last attended two years ago. Worried that my chosen items would be gone by Sunday, I just bought what I liked - haha!
Here's what I came away with... the most heavenly light and soft cashmere from Springtide Farm. It was pricey but there were so few skeins that I had to make sure they went to good homes:


The fleece on the table used to belong to Iris. Poor old Iris, she was a happy goat, apparently.





I also purchased some sock yarn, but not for socks - maybe scarves - I'm into scarves at the mo:






I'm not so good at lining up the text with the photos....please bare with me....





It wasn't all about the yarn buying. The last time I was at the festival I purchased a huge bag of soft roving, as I had planned on learning how to spin. Since buying it the bag of fibre has just been taking up space and gathering dust, so I needed to buy a drop spindle - here's a little shot of the cheapo spindle I aquired. If I get good at it I may treat myselt to a more fancy one:


Here's a pic of me getting to know the most photo friendly sheep I have ever had the pleasure of meeting - this little fellow certainly loved the camera!

and before this weekend I had never heard of such a thing as a therapy llama, but they do exist and here's a photo of one:


We were told that these animals were taken into homes to help people by petting them. One person who hadn't spoken for years bfore meeting the therapy llama uttered the words, "Oh wow!", after having their hand placed onto the animal's coat. Who knew?

Meeting the animals wasn't enough for some people as the queues for the lamb ravioli and chicken pot pies snaked around other tents around lunchtime. I stuck to the baked potato and apple crisp to fortify myself.
Here we are at the picnic table for Sunday lunch and to have a show and tell with our purchases, from left; Nicole, Micheline, (I'm guessing the spelling, sorry if I've got it wrong), Johanna, Jenn, Ruth, a rare shot of camera-shy Claudine and yours truley:

I had a wonderful time in the fresh air - so good to be with a huge field full of people who are just as mad about all things wild and wooly as me. Can't wait to go again next year!