What Day Is It?

What a weekend it was! Weekends away always mess with my internal schedule, but this weekend was exceptional. It was great fun but also greatly exhausting, so I expect I will be playing catch-up all week.

I think it's fair to say that we all had a great time at Rhinebeck. With the exception of some light showers on Sunday afternoon, the weather was spectacularly autumnal and perfect for sweaters. But the two days at the festival were also incredibly busy, even with an extra person in the booth to help out this year. I did not get out of the booth all weekend except to go to the bathroom once or twice each day, so I did not have a chance to visit any other buildings or see any other vendors at the fairgrounds. Not that that was a problem -- I certainly didn't have a need for any more yarn! But I also didn't come back from Rhinebeck empty-handed.

Aside from the festival t-shirt (that's the thing wrapped in plastic that looks like a postcard), which technically was purchased by Scooter Pie, I bought everything you see here at Indie Untangled or Needles Up, both of which occurred the day before the festival and were really my only chances to shop. As I said, I really didn't need anything, but I did decide to treat myself. The yarn at the top is, from left to right, self-striping from Must Stash Yarn, a purple variegated (to make something for Rainbow) from LolaBean Yarn Co., the MDSW colorway from Fibernymph Dye Works (because I never made it to Needles Up Maryland this year to get a skein), and four skeins of fingering weight singles from Lambstrings Yarn that I plan to use for the Stephen West mystery shawl that's currently in progress. I purchased a bar of wool soap to try and a lotion stick (in the Cider Donut scent, yummy!) from Tuft Woolens as well as two enamel pins from Nerd Bird Makery, a sloth in a tree for Rainbow and a "Nevertheless She Knitted" one for me.

New acquisitions aside, the best part of going to Rhinebeck was seeing people -- friends from near and far, podcasters, members of the "knitterati," and so forth. Here are a few photos I got (though I missed taking photos with some other people because I was a little awestruck, like Bristol Ivy, Kirsten Kapur, and Jenny and Nicole from the Stash and Burn podcast).

Top left: with Beth Smith and Amy King (aka Spunky Eclectic)
Top right: with Lisa Ross of Paper Daisy Creations
Bottom left: with Boston Jen (center) of the Down Cellar Studio podcast and her mom
Bottom right: with Caroline aka Dunderknit of the Knitting Vicariously podcast

As you can see, I did wear my new sweater all weekend, and one of the highlights of the weekend was when Kirsten Kapur stopped by the booth to say hi and told me that she thought the pattern was beautiful. She may have just been trying to be nice, but I was over the moon regardless!

Now it is back to reality for me. The Mister is away at another conference this week, so Rainbow and I are managing on our own and trying to get the house back in order. I've got lots of blog reading and e-mail to catch up on and laundry and house cleaning to do. And I will be back to my normal blogging routine later in the week!