Rhinebeck, Part Deux

So, in case it wasn't obvious from my last post, IV and I spent Day 1 of NYS&W seeing as much as we possibly could of all the vendors there. Wow! But lest you think all the shopping I did was for myself, check these out:

















Here are the presents I picked out for my Secret Pal 9 pal's first package. There's 3 oz of gorgeous IMHO wine/burgundy wool from Hatchtown Farms, two hand-dyed silk caps and a big bag of Irish linen roving (yes, my partner is a spinner). I'm planning to send out her package on Friday after I add some chocolates and one of my felted bowls; I really hope she likes it!

















And how could I forget DH and Baby M? The skein of grey sportweight alpaca is for DH. He's been wanting a skullcap and a pair of fingerless mittens for awhile now, and I just fell in love with this yarn. And at $20 for over 600 yards of 100% soft, luxurious alpaca, I can't complain about the price!

The kitty was hand-crocheted by one of the vendors in Building 22, and I must say it took me more time to choose this one little stuffed animal than it took me to pick out any of my other purchases that weekend. There were so many adorable animals to choose from, and each one was a little different. I love that it's made with angora from the vendor's own bunnies and that it's stuffed with slow-felting wool as opposed to polyfill. Baby M loves it and happily calls it Mew Mew.

The other item in the photo is a small needle felting tool; I've been wanting to try needle felting designs into the rims of my felted bowls, and NYS&W was the perfect place to find the tools I needed.

And speaking of tools, I was able to help IV pick up a tool she's wanted for awhile: a rigid heddle loom. Right at closing time we stopped by a booth with boxes of Ashford RH looms stacked on a shelf. As we were looking around, I saw a sign on one side of the booth saying there was a used Beka RH (the same brand as my RH loom) for sale for $60. I checked it out and it looked to be in good working order, and the seller kindly threw in an extra heddle (for a total of 2) plus a shuttle. So, now in addition to the shawls IV makes on her tri-loom, she'll be making ruanas and rectangular shawls on the RH -- after I give her a lesson in how to use it, of course!

Like me, IV bought relatively little on Saturday; the RH loom was her biggest purchase of the day. Much as we saw, our mantra was "We can always come back for it tomorrow." Like most things in life, this was a little true and a little not. Yes, we could always come back; no, it wouldn't always be there. But, no worries -- something else equally grand always was.