This ain't your MA's Wool Festival

Whoa. I've been to MA Sheep and Wool a few times now, so I thought I was kind of prepared for Rhinebeck. I was not prepared.

I was in fact dazed and overwhelmed by the number of vendors, the lines, the sheer number of people. And the yarn. Good god, the yarn. I think the yarn haze explains why I spent two days there and emerged with almost no pictures. And why it's taken me almost a week to write something semi-coherent about it.



My knittahs Jenny and Sarah were most excellent company on the trip, and not just because they can always be counted on to say "Yes, you DO deserve that hand-dyed sock yarn!!" Though that didn't hurt.

So what did we do in NY, besides buy yarn?

I watched Jenny entrance passersby with her spinning. I know she convinced at least one person to buy a spindle (or as I think of it, lured another member into the coven).



We stood in line for an hour to buy Socks that Rock. Turns out, knitters make excellent company. Best damn line I've ever stood in. And well worth it for these pretties...



We saw a lot of bloggers.... I completely forgot that reading each other's blogs does not actually mean I know someone in real life and totally hugged Kristy of Eleven Stitches when I ran into her on Saturday. Sorry about that. Your Venezia really was stunning.

We ate next to Franklin Habit at a diner. We stalked the Yarn Harlot. I felt kind of bad when she totally busted me right after I Kinneared her...



Until I saw this picture on Ravelry. Heh.

We enjoyed ourselves immensely at the Ravelry party, where we scored goody bags, free beer AND a sweet spot in the heated tents with the always-charming Susan of Martha's Vineyard Fiber Farm, and her equally charming family.



We ate a whole lot of greasy food...



And I even did a little knitting...



I have the second sock about halfway done and I'd like to finish it before I start something else.

But damn, all that pretty new sock yarn is calling to me...

Guess what I did tonight?

Yup - had fun with Photoshop...AND...more importantly...

...took crappy pictures of the Yarn Harlot...





Jealous?

The wrong week to quit sniffing glue

So this week kind of blew in a lot of ways. And I’m missing out on both a friend’s pig roast and a blog fodder GOLDMINE (aka the Salem zombie parade) this weekend because I have too much to do (I realize that blogging doesn't help with the "too much to do" problem).

Plus, I keep whacking into things (while sober, thankyouverymuch), so I’m covered in large multi-colored bruises. I’ve decided to consider them a festive dash of contrasting color rather than a clear sign that I’m a little jammed up and distracted because of it.

But enough bitching. Let’s talk about knitting. Specifically, holy fuck it’s Socktoberfest!! I love Socktoberfest! My favorite time of year in New England AND a gazillion knitters making socks and talking about socks and posting lovely pictures of socks.

And I just happen to have started the most perfectly fall-liscious sock…



The usual – basic stockinette, 72 stitch cast-on, Meilenweit Megaboots Stretch, size 2 needles. But do you see those colors? Mmmm…


And I’m only a tiny bit bitter that October is stupid busy this year...Because since classes have been cutting into my knitting time, it seems only fair that knitting should start cutting into my class time. There are at least two other sock knitters in my Collection Development class (including this blogger), and they've been happily knitting away through the lectures and discussions. So finally I just started knitting too.

Sweeeeet...Three solid, blissful hours of sock knitting every week…

And, uh, learning. Lots and lots of important learning.