Rhinebeck 2012 Rundown

OK, so because I need a break from studying, you get the Rhinebeck rundown and loot viewing today. I was a good girl and studied in the car and at the hotel in the evenings, and I think the schedule's under control...
All the leaves have been falling here, so I was thinking we might miss seeing the fall color on the way down. There was plenty left, though. This is part of the Adirondacks on the way there, before those clouds came down and started raining.

It poured for hours, and when we got to Red Hook, we had to grab umbrellas and scamper to get into the antique shops without getting soaked. I found some National Geographic magazines from the 1920's, so those came home with me.

The rain let up for the evening, and we got checked in at the Delamater. See the arrow? That's our room. Right on the main drag in Rhinebeck, super nice, plenty of space, comfy beds, walking distance to the Festival. There was a kitchenette and a sitting room for the guests, too. Only downside was that the breakfast was mediocre. And no, you can't have it - we booked on the way out for next year!

The weather for Saturday was bright and sunny - in fact, too hot for most people to show off handknit sweaters by the time we got to the fairgrounds. It was a little disappointing to find that my expected supplier for indigo and thiox wasn't there. That was the main thing on my shopping list. Not that I had any problem finding things to buy. I picked up some gorgeous merino/silk roving in red and purple jewel-tones, undyed sock yarn in an alpaca blend, a huge skein of burgundy merino/silk laceweight, some books and magazines, and some lavender hand lotion.

We found a bit of time Sunday to say hi to the sheep and goats,

checked out the sheep-to-shawl teams,

and looked at entries for the Make it with Wool competition.

But that was it - Sunday noon we had to get going, to get home at a decent hour. But there is one more pretty to show you. Johanne got her yarn and rovings back from the mill last week, and I got a couple bags of the cria roving to spin for her. Colors like chocolate and dulce de leche, with a light streak in each. Super soft, and I can't wait to see how it spins and knits up.

Treasure Hunt

Between Fleece Spa on Friday and the Friday knit-out, Deb and I decided to make a stop at the Value Village near her place. Um, yeah, so we never actually made it to the knit-out. Poking in second-hand stores can really eat at your time. Definitely worth the stop though.

My intention going in was to look for dyepots, storage racks, do a run through the fabric/sheets/curtains to see if there was any fabric Mom would want for her rug weaving, and my usual poke through the book section. Found two great dyepots, one with a strainer insert, which is a bonus for any dyebaths involving chopped plants. Spent a while in the books and movies, emerging with a nice little pile. We poked at all the yarns and craft supplies, and went through the fabric and bedding throughly. No sheets or cotton of the type Mom likes, but I found a couple things for me instead. In the fabrics was a 2.5 yard piece of what I'm sure is raw silk. Heavy and drapey and oatmeal-colored. It may turn into a skirt. At any rate, we couldn't leave it there!

So what's the dark piece on top of the silk? Just across the aisle was a section with shawls and scarves. I saw one which was a green wool with what, at first glance, looked like an embroidered ribbon trim. A second look revealed the trim was embroidered on directly, and looks like hand embroidery. Either that or they've come up with a machine that has the same irregularities and finishing techniques as a human.

The embroidered trim makes a band all the way around a pashmina-sized area. The patience and time it would have required! And here it was in the second-hand store. The ends need to be hemmed, but that is a comparatively small job. One of those things where you almost wish you knew the story behind it. Who made it? Why did it end up being given away, when it was so nearly finished? Where did the embroiderer get the pattern, so dense and flowing and rich?

That's the thing with the second-hand places. Some days you find very little, and other days you find treasures, and it's always an adventure.

Errand Day

Since I do most of my travel in the city by bus, it’s become second nature to lump as many stops into one session as possible – get the most for my money, as it were. In one of Piers Anthony’s Xanth novels, he mentions a practice of requiring three reasons to go anywhere, and that’s something like what I try for. So Monday after my e-mail check, I went to work off accumulated errands, being out of cash, out of reading material, and requiring a saw. Stop one was downtown, for the bank and library. I think I did pretty well with my library session. (There seem to be issues with adding pictures today. This is as good as it gets, sorry.)

I always like to see what people get at the library and the grocery store, as a way of learning something about them. Wonder what my library pile says to others? This week’s run included 2 Victorian-set mysteries, 2 sci-fi/fantasy, Ovid’s Metamorphoses in two volumes, a book on Louisburg and one on the English conquest of Canada, and two on rural schools – Glengarry Schooldays by Ralph Connor and Tales from a Village School by Miss Read. Sadly, I’m on the third book of the 10 already. I have this issue with putting books down.

I ran down to Lee Valley also before going home, for the saw. Just a small folding one for pruning, as I’m cleaning up the garden for someone nearby, for a little extra money. They have lots of soft maple invading, and an old honeysuckle interfering with the clothesline, among other things. I suspect they haven’t done much at all in years with the place (he says, ’The garden is here, or it was 8 years ago.’), and it will be satisfying to see it come alive again.

I also bought garden shoes there. I had a couple of gift cards to spend, and I know these shoes are comfy and tough – my parents have them also, and if Mom can’t kill them, they’re pretty darn good. I use them when I’m there, and love them, except they’re a couple sizes too big, so now I have my own. And in red not green like the others, so it’s hard to mix them up – think of the confusion three pair of almost-identical green shoes would cause. Bad enough our rubber boots are the same.    

Road Trip

Three of us spinners headed off to Montreal on Saturday morning. Object of trip: meet up with an artistic someone who knew about a little place where they make handmade paper, which she described as 'crack cocaine for artists'. Subsequently, lunch and yarn crawl before heading home. As one of our number is a printmaker, and the other two are fiber-focused but multicraftual, this was a fully agreeable plan.

The paper place proved to be very much what you might expect of somewhere selling the artist's equivalent of illegal drugs. Old brick factory building, well graffitoed. Entrance via a minimally marked, basement-level steel door. Inside, nothing fancy. Concrete floor, one side having pulp tubs and screens and supplies for making the paper, printing presses scattered about, a broom closet-looking bathroom, and the rest having a variety of shelving, tables, and piles containing paper, and random buckets and boxes with trimmings. Not standard 8.5 x 11 sheets, mind you. Heavy, textured, deckle-edged sheets in a variety of colors and sizes. Some with seeds or rags or leaves incorporated. Linen paper. Even vellum. Our two artists had a lovely time, kept drifting off distracted, and finally came out with a bundle each. We then had to return as one had gotten so distracted she had left her coat there.

After lunch (a little Indian place which rendered us all too full to think about supper) was yarn shopping and the turn of the yarn and fiber crew to get distracted, although the artists had fun as well. I was not intending to splurge, but...I saw a copy of Barbara Walker's Second Treasury of Knitting Patterns, flipped through, and didn't let go of it. Now I know what the fuss is about her, and I shall definitely be keeping my eyes open for the other three Treasuries. I have several stitch dictionaries about, but I have never seen most of what was in that book, and it is making my designing node itch.

Oh, and I also bought a skein of yarn. I needed it to test the pattern for Kim's mitts I made last year. (Justify, justify!) And bagels, because that's what you do in Montreal. I haven't had a Montreal bagel in years, possibly not since I moved away from there. They will be breakfast this week.