The first thing I did when I woke up Friday morning was to check the weather. Nor’easter? Six Inches of SNOW in Binghamton? Not a good omen. But that doesn’t stop the Weather Witch 
The car and camper were packed and ready to roll. Rachel got to the house around 10:30am – we loaded in her stuff and we were on the road. We had expected the worst weather wise, but as we hit the Berkshires the sun peeked out from the cloudy skies and there were even patches of blue ahead. “Enough to make a Dutchman a pair of pants”, as my Grandmother used to say.
We arrived at the campsite and got it all set up and ready. We just couldn’t figure out how to turn on the heat. I had brought along a small electric space heater just in case. Fortunately some fellow campers stopped by and showed us how it worked. HEAT! YAY! Rachel and I shared a snack then decided to take a little nap after our long drive and hard work setting up camp.
That evening we headed off to Rhinebeck to meet up with our knitting buddies, Amy, Britney, Liz and Liz’s son, Chris (although not officially a knitting bud, still one of the ‘family’). We had an awesome dinner at Foster’s Tavern. Then we all headed off to our perspective accommodations and to bed with dreams of fiber fantasies dancing in our heads.
We got back to our camp around 10pm, fired up the heater and crawled into our beds, anxious to get good nights sleep and to be up and at the festival grounds before the gates opened at 9am.
Up early and after a quick coffee and muffin – we were on the road to the festival. We thanked the Goddess Asphaltia for awesome parking and for running into Amy and Britney as we got out of the car. We were all in the park by 9:15am.
Let the Fiber Fantasy begin. Rachel and I started with the Alpaca and a quick trip to the Little Barn Tent. Last year Brian and I had stumbled upon this vendor at the end of the day and although we acquired lots of goods it was clear it was picked clean and we had missed some good stuff. This year, Rachel and I SCORED!
We managed to get through the Little Barn tent and at least 4 barns before we had to take a trip to the car to unload.
Alpaca and Angora… YUMMY!
Yes, Jena, I did pet some cute Llama’s and Alpacas for you. They were so cute.
Is that a face of a Babydoll or what?
The two things that I really wanted to acquire were a lovely spindle (I found two must haves), and I was hoping to find a nice fleece.
The one on the left is a Tom Forrester Spindle with a Spalted Maple whorl with an Oak Shaft – it spins like a dream. The one on the right is a Lily Spindle. Its three layers of different woods, Cherry in the center, Walnut on the edge, and on the bottom is Olive wood. These are made by Gilbert Gonsalves who also makes the gorgeous Robin Spinning Wheels. Since I will probably never own one of his gorgeous wheels, I was happy to get one of his spindles. They are both just beautiful.
As you can see I really scored on the spindles, but what about the fleece?
On the ride down Rachel had told me about a black fleece she and Amber had to give up last year, so I got this idea in my head that I wanted to find a fine, dark fleece this year.
Having hit most of the barns and grabbing a yummy Gyro wrap, we headed over to stand in line for the fleece sale so we could get a good shot at a top fleece when the doors opened. Fines to the right front… I headed directly there. The first dark fleece I spotted was really nice, but had those white nits on some of the locks that you can never get out… the second one – in the back…. SCORE! I grabbed it and didn’t let go. Its 4 lbs. 7 oz. of a Dark Merino Lamb, Coated fleece. I don’t think I have ever seen anything so lovely.
After the fleece sale, we had been through most if not all of the barns, had spent all of our fiber dollars and the dogs were barking. What we both really wanted to do was go back to the camper, have some munchies and play with our new fiberlicious acquisitions. This is exactly what we did.
As we munched our fresh baguette smeared with brie, fresh apple slices and enjoyed our Jack with Cokes, we knit, we were toasty warm, and we listened to the pending weather reports of doom for the next day. By 10 pm we were done in.
The next morning we were up early, with dark grey skies, and looming bad weather (and the fact we wanted to get home so we could play some more with our fibery purchases) we packed up and headed out. Stopping for breakfast at a diner in Saugerties, the temperature was cold and the clouds really look ominous. I was glad to be on the road early.
We hit rain just a little before the exit off the NY Thruway towards Boston. By the time we hit the Berkshires the snow flakes were so big and wet it was like getting wacked with snowballs. But the traffic kept moving at a fairly even pace and we were home by 1pm.
It was a perfect weekend and I cannot wait to do it again next year!
I have lots of things to blog about but no time to pull them together.
