This pumpkin’s going to Rhinebeck (AKA the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival)! If you’re going, stop by Weston Hill Farm‘s booth in Building A, 42-43. The pumpkin and some of my patterns will be there. While you’re there, check out their amazing yarn, roving, and Eileen’s amazing felted sculptures!
Weston Hill Farm Worsted Weight Yarn
Eileen and Chris chose the spider motif as their favorite, and I set to work. The darker yarn is their sport weight, which worked fine for the colorwork sections. I held it double for the stem, which created quite the gnarly stem! To go with this stem, a weighty, dramatic button was needed, and I found this button in Mom’s button tin. I’m not sure whether it was Mom’s or Grandma’s, and I’m not sure of the vintage (50’s-70’s?), but it was the perfect finishing touch.
If you go, let me know if you see the pumpkin! Have a wonderful time!!!
xoxo
Carol
P.S. If you’re looking for the pattern, you can find it here, $5.00:
Rhinebeck, as the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival is known, is now a distant memory, but the yarn I brought home with me is a concrete reminder of a lovely weekend spent with friends. I wrote about the weekend here, and now I’m writing about the yarn I chose and why.
My first yarn purchase at Rhinebeck was from Weston Hill Farm. I discovered Weston Hill Farm on my first trip to Rhinebeck, in 2011. The yarn was luminous, natural, and I had never seen anything quite like it. I returned to their booth several times, finally buying a sweater’s worth of yarn for this Shalom Cardigan using only natural, undyed yarns. Weston Hill Farm’s yarn comprised the bulk of it.
I’ve also used Weston Hills Farm yarns to make this Ebb Cowl (pattern by Susan B. Anderson)
The yarn I brought home this year from Weston Hills Farm is just as beautiful! It is luminous, soft and springy, and I love the colorways – beautiful, pure hues and subtle tonal solids.
Weston Hill Farm – Worsted WeightWeston Hill Farm – Mountain Lake, Pear
Weston Hill Farm is based out of Westerlo, New York. Eileen and I became friends following Rhinebeck 2011 – when I called to order a bit more yarn to finish that Shalom – and I always love to see the pictures she shares on social media of the farm’s sheep: Romneys, Border Leicesters, and long wool cross sheep. This is Ailionora, a registered Romney ewe. Isn’t she adorable?
Ailionora, photo used by permission
Getting back to Rhinebeck – next on my quest for fiber, I picked up some lovely yarn by Solitude Wool.
Solitude Wool is based in Virginia and creates breed-specific yarns. Each skein lists the yarn’s fiber source as well as the yarn character, fiber content/care, length, size, suggested needles, gauge and batch.
Gradient and/or mini skein sets were all the rage at Rhinebeck, but I didn’t find one that I couldn’t pass up until I saw the Llama-rama mini skein bouquets at Solitude Wool. The yarn is 1/2 llama & 1/2 Romney, 2-ply/ fingering, 35 yds per color (210 yards total). The beautiful heathered colors are created by blending natural color llama with natural and dyed-in-the-wool Romney. It’s luminous, too.
Llama-rama mini skein bouquet
I fell hard for this Alpaca/Merino. This fiber is a blend of 80% natural, undyed black and white alpaca with 20% natural and dyed-in-the wool Merino (2-ply/ lace weight, 275 yds, 2 oz). It is amazingly soft, and I absolutely love the muted purple tones. I think they had me at “elegant” in the description on the label. It has a great deal of depth, and I see more to love about it each time I look at it.
Solitude Yarns Alpaca/Merino
The next yarn company that made me stop and stay awhile in their booth was North Light Fibers. North Light Fibers is a micro yarn mill based in Block Island, Rhode Island. We spent a lot of time in their booth just squishing the yarn – it all had an incredible hand. I was tempted by the cashmere – and it was amazing – but ended up with the Atlantic – 100% Falkland Island’s Wool (3-ply/Worsted, 170 yds, 2.5 oz). I snagged the exclusive colorway they created just for Rhinebeck, Blue Moon, a lovely periwinkle – one of my favorite colors ever. It will have excellent stitch definition, and will probably end up as cabled mitts.
North Light Fibers Atlantic in Blue Moon
My final purchase of the weekend was from a Hudson Valley farm, Buckwheat Bridge Angoras. The farm raises Angora goats and Cormo sheep using sustainable practices. What caught my eye, however, were the painterly colorways. Beautiful!
Buckwheat Bridge Angoras 70/30
The blend is 70% Fine Kid Mohair and 30% Cormo Wool. The green colorway is 250 yds/4 oz. and the multi blue/yellow is finer at 200 yds/2 oz.
Buckwheat Bridge Angoras 70/30
I’m always amazed at the wonderful yarn selection now available to fiber enthusiasts. When I think back to the yarns my mother used back in the 1970’s and 1980’s, I am so grateful for the natural fibers we can now so easily find. And now, when there are so many artists hand-dyeing their fibers in gorgeous colorways such as the ones that made it into my Rhinebeck shopping bag – with so many options, now is a great time to be a knitter!
I was so fortunate to be able attend Rhinebeck last weekend! For those of you not yet familiar with Rhinebeck, that’s the name knitters, crocheters, weavers, spinners, dyers and other fiber lovers have given to the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival, which takes place every October at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds in Rhinebeck, New York.
Going to Rhinebeck has become an annual affair for many. For me, this was my second time attending, the first having been in 2011. I wrote about that trip here: Fiber Festivals as Travel Destinations.
I attended Rhinebeck with my friends Meg and Jen, and we met up with other Ravelry friends while at the festival (see picture below). We also had a great meet-up with our friend Alex and her mom, but I didn’t end up with the meet-up picture. We lucked out with lovely accommodations in Kingston. We had mixed results with our dinner in Kingston. But in the end, it came down to good company and lots of fun, fibery goodness.
Reports I’ve read state that about 30,000 people attended on Saturday. It was a bit crowded for me, but good for people watching and scoping out the yarn. Sunday was much more comfortable, the lines were much shorter and you could move around in the artists’ booths. I made no purchases on Saturday and none until about the last hour we were there on Sunday. I was sorely tempted all weekend by qiviut, the fine undercoat of the muskox and the softest fiber I’ve ever touched, but finally decided against it. I love locally sourced yarn, and that is mostly what I ended up with.
Now we come to the fun part, which is lots of pictures of Rhinebeck and pictures of the yarn!
Arriving in RhinebeckFall is in the air at RhinebeckFair food – while I didn’t have any of this, I did have maple cotton candy – delish!Happy RhinebeckersPassport Mitts in the wild! Made by Meg, Jen, and AlexSunday morning drive to Rhinebeck4-H dad talks to Jen about raising Shetland sheep. They are social animals and have to be sold in groups of two or more – at least in NY.This little guy was about six months old. He was so cute!
And the fiber!!!
(Click on the pictures with a yarn source named in the caption to go to each one’s website.)
Buckwheat Bridge Angoras. Love the colorways! The top one reminds me of Van Gogh and the bottom one is a luscious green.North Light Fibers Atlantic in Blue Moon – Rhinebeck exclusive color…more of a periwinkleSolitude Wool loveliesWeston Hill Farm Hand Dyed Sport Weight in Pear and Mountain LakeWeston Hill Hand Dyed Worsted Weight in Peony and New Dawn Rose
Thanks for letting me share my impressions with you. It was a wonderful weekend – and best of all was the time spent with old and new friends!
In 2010, I went through a difficult time personally. It was suggested to me that I plan something to look forward to as a way to get through and beyond what I was going through.
Even though I began knitting a few years before, in 2009 my knitting really took off and I also discovered the amazing fiber arts resource and website, Ravelry.
The following year, one of my new Ravelry friends filmed a video as she and a friend drove to the New York Sheep and Wool Festival, affectionately referred to as Rhinebeck. Her video showed the beautiful landscape of Upstate New York in all its fall glory, but more than that, her excitement for Rhinebeck was contagious. I was hooked! I wanted to go to Rhinebeck! Rhinebeck would be my something to look forward to.
The planning started. I purchased airline tickets. I found my roommate (the friend above). Someone (not me) found a great place to stay in the Catskills. I made my Rhinebeck sweater.
I signed up for classes; if I were going to spend the money to fly across the country, it should be not only a social and shopping time, but also a time to increase my skills. I took a class on sweater design and one on Tvåändsstickning (!)- a Swedish knitting technique in which two strands of yarn, usually of the same color, are twined together. The classes were terrific!
Rhinebeck highlights:
My Rhinebeck SweaterCarol, Nicole, SuzanneFall Color at RhinebeckYarn from Rhinebeck, most from family-owned farms such as Weston Hill Farm
Best of all was the realization that a meaningful trip could be built around fiber activities. Thus began the quest for yarn festivals, retreats, yarn crawls, and any other event that could be classified as fiber-related.
Since then I have attended the Columbia Gorge Fiber Festival , the Blue Moon Fiber Arts Barn Sale, the Rose City Yarn Crawl, and Vogue Knitting Live Seattle 2014, and my sisters and I toured Ranch of the Oaks during our 2014 Sisters’ Weekend. Each is worthy of its own blog post, but…well, my hope is to write up reviews after I attend events in the future.
This fun video introduces the next fiber event I’ll be attending:
I wholeheartedly recommend fiber events as the kernel for travel planning. They provide terrific opportunities to meet wonderful people, to become more educated in the craft, to have something exciting to look forward to and to plan for, and, of course, to increase the stash!
Meet-up for bagels before the 2015 Blue Moon Fiber Arts Barn Sale:
Left to Right: Carol, Melissa, Debby, Richelle. Photo, Melissa Keating, used by permission.
