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Rhinebeck 2016

As I spoke about in earlier posts, this year some friends and I decided to go to Rhinebeck, which is the knitting lingo for the New York Sheep and Wool Festival held in the Rhinebeck valley the third weekend of each October.

The festival itself was held on Saturday and Sunday, so my friends and I decided to fly out to New York on Thursday and fly home on Monday.  That meant that we had Friday free to explore the area.

And explore we did.  We first hit up Fabulous Yarn in Tivoli, New York. This cute storefront mostly does online business, but offered a goodie bag and sale prices for the week and weekend of Rhinebeck. We picked up our goodie bags and a few small items.

Next we drove down to Rhinebeck Village. We had heard that there was a yarn store in the back of The A.L. Stickle Variety Store that was worth checking out. Sure enough, there was beautiful yarn in the Knitting Garage.

After two yarn stores, we got some lunch at Liberty of Rhinebeck, where we made friends with the owner of Do Ewe Knit, the Hedgehog Fibres capital of the US (in Jersey!).

While at lunch, the ladies told us there was a yarn and tea shop up in Saugerties, NY.  Of course I had to check that out. Check back on the blog on Friday for my adventures at The Perfect Blend Yarn & Tea shop.

After hitting three yarn stores in just a few hours, we headed back to the hotel to relax a little and do some knitting.  Then in the evening we attended the Indie Untangled show that was at the hotel.  I met a ton of people who I knew on Ravelry, but had never met in person before. It was so much fun to shop for yarns and meet people! I didn’t take the camera though, so I don’t have any photos to share.

Friday morning dawned early and chilly. We put on our wooly gear and headed out to wait in line at the Dutchess County Fair Grounds.

We spent the day wandering booths, eating yummy things (cider! gyros!) and shopping. The whole day was such a wonderful one. Everyone was wearing beautiful garments to show off, and everyone was excited and friendly. The day was full of riotous color and meeting people and viewing beautiful yarns. We attended the Ravelry meetup as well as the podcaster meetup and I got to meet many viewers of the podcast. I also did some shopping of course!

By the end of day one I had amassed quite the haul. Included are items from Spirit Trail Fiberworks, Hedgehog Fibres, Cozy Color Works, Spun Right Round, A Hundred Ravens and Bijou Basin Ranch.

The weather both days was gorgeous and the area was full of color.  I loved the leaves!

We also managed a photo shoot on Saturday for our sweaters! I finished my Rhinebeck sweater in time to wear it to the festival and I loved it. Special thanks to Ana for the photos of my sweater.

Sunday dawned a little warmer. With most of my shopping done (don’t worry I still bought more on Sunday) I spent the day taking photos and meeting people and eating food. First order of business Sunday morning was apple cider donuts!

Also, we had to see the animals!

As the festival closed Sunday evening and we prepared to go back to Albany to fly home, we made one last stop in the beautiful Hudson valley to see the Saugerties Lighthouse. It was a wet walk, but worth it!

There is so much more I could tell you, but I’ll just let you browse the Flickr album I created if you want to see more.

It was a wonderful, creative, inspiring weekend with friends and I’m so glad I went!

0 thoughts on “Rhinebeck 2016

  1. looks like you had a great time… I’m glad you had nice weather. thanks for sharing some pics… looking forward to hearing more about it and what you bought on your podcast 😀

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