Oh, what a feeling...

cause we're dancing on the ceiling!! (thanks Lionel...)

seriously, folks. Jeni and Stacey arrived bright and early on Friday morning. We needed sustenance for our plans for the day, and headed to breakfast. Then we began our weekend journey.

First stop: WEBS. Those two went a bit crazy, (which I can understand... remember this? We bumped into Melanie, Kellee, and Elisa. Reportedly, Elisa misspoke while talking about NY Sheep and Wool, renaming it, appropriately, Yarnbeck. Which I like better than Rhinebeck.

In any case, second go around at WEBS, I was much more well behaved.


we've got a skein of some mega boots stretch meilenweit sock yarn, a skein of plymouth yarn linen isle, and a hank of valley yarns kangaroo dyer lace weight (950 yds) in the handd atlantis colorway. I needed the linen in order to get the discount (spend an extra $3.50 so i could get 20% off? heck yeah).

We hopped back in the car for the other half of the drive, and got to our hotel. Since we were all up at the crack of dawn AND we wanted to be well rested for the next day's festivities, we went to bed early. We awoke at the ass crack of dawn, simply too excited for Yarnbeck. We got there OBSCENELY early. We had time to wander around, look at all the different sheepies (i loved the baby dolls... I kinda want a few for my back yard when I grow up!)

A lovely man from some alpaca farm let us ask all sorts of nosy questions about his alpacas. He gave us a mini lecture about the differences between llamas and alpacas. I also wanted to know about baby alpacas, b/c well, that's my favorite kind of alpaca yarn, right? If you aren't sitting down already, sit down. Baby alpaca fiber? NOT from a baby alpaca!!!!! Are you SHOCKED? I was flabbergasted by this information. This nice man (dang, how did I spend 20 min talking to a man.. and NOT know his name?) pulled out this little tactile demonstration of the differences in alpaca fiber (four different grades... he had little burlap sacs filled with roving from the 4 different grades). The baby alpaca is the finest (thinnest) of alpaca fibers... which is why it feels so soft. If someone had been videotaping me during those 20 minutes, I swear a little lightbulb would've turned on above my head when he explained all of that...

we noticed someone walking around with a vendor bag... and rushed back over to where The Fold was located, in order to get our fill of Socks That Rock. I was quite restrained, if I do say myself... 2 skeins. Puck's Mischief and Lagoon.

Honestly, the rest of the morning was a big blur. We wandered from booth to booth, building to building. I'm quite the pre-planner, and had printed out the names of all the vendors and the booth/building locations of the ones I wanted to visit FOR SURE. I tried to be systematic about it. The plan was met with limited success.

Here's a pic of all the stuff I got at Rhinebeck.



A skein of Sea Purls from Briar Rose, sock yarn from The Fold, sock yarn from Spirit Trail, some super soft wool/angora from Jamie Harmon, a skein of lace weight from Skaska, a company out of Ft Collins, CO, and a needle case from Crippenworks. All in all, I don't feel like i went COMPLETELY crazy, and in fact, i'm kind of wondering why I didn't buy MORE. Then I look to the left at my stash, and wonder why I bought so much. No buyer's remorse though. I'm all fired up to cast on for about 10 more projects!!

Somewhere in the frenzy, we ate some fried artichockes and some french fries smothered in cheese. Obviously, we made it to blogger meet up, where I was able to cross off quite a few on my bingo card... and see the Yarn Harlot in person (holy kamoly, the wedding shawl is prettier in person. I know, hard to believe, but really!). I also finally got to meet Monica, who I've been blogstalking forever... how fun was that!!!

Totally exhuasted, we left the fairgrounds... because it was closing time. I would've stayed longer and bought more, if the booths were open past 5pm. Sigh.

I was complete. Rhinebeck had me at "hello."

* to answer the questions... no, that mountain of yarn in the previous post is NOT all mine. As some of you (most recently Kim) noticed, there is PINK yarn in that pile. PINK yarn will never be something that I've acquired for myself.