Why is my wallet empty?

Wow, the weather up there is totally different than New York City. It was so cold! When I got off the train on Friday night, I realized that I didn't dress warm enough. My friend did warn me ahead of time that she was not going to turn on the heat. She is running low on oil and is thinking of switching over to Gas Heat, so she was still waiting to decide on what to do. I asked her for a bunch of blankets.We got to Rhinebeck at 9:30am, half an hour after they opened. It takes about 45min - 1 hour to get there from my friend's house in Beacon. The ride up was beautiful. You can definitely see that Fall is here from all the beautiful colors of the leaves. The above photo is the only photo of Rhinebeck I took before the shopping commenced. I took one or two more of the vendors booth, but after that I forgot all about it. I think that all the wooly goodness just puts a trance over you. It got pretty overwhelming with the crowds and just the size of the place.

After I bought my ticket, I looked up and saw someone with a blue hat walk by. It was Julie, so I called out to her and introduced myself. She had told me that she was going to be wearing that hat and we had exchanged cell phone numbers in case we had time to meet. I didn't expect to see her so early, but I am glad that I did since I didn't end up having anytime for meeting anyone. We were only able to talk briefly before we parted ways to make a beeline for certain booths that sell out fast. My two friends that I was with was making a beeline for a booth that they bought from last year, so I had to follow them. It was only 9:30am, and the line to pay was so long already.
I am glad that I made it to the Brooks Farm booth before noon, the booth was mobbed already. This is where I spent the bulk of my money and it was so worth it. A lot of colors were already going fast. Some only had one skein left. My friend and I waded in and tried to reach through people to get what we wanted. The problem is that the line to pay is also inside the booth, so there is not enough room for the people that are shopping and the people that want to pay. Luckily, us knitters are pretty nice people, so no one minded. The above two skeins is Brooks Farm "Solo" in a beautiful variegated greens.Brooks Farm "Solo" in reds, brown and orange.Brooks Farm "Solo Silk", 50% wool/50% silk in purples.And my favorite, Brooks Farm "Solana" in greens. This yarn is super wash and is super soft.Down-Under Wool Yarn in blues, 100% wool.Shelridge Farm is another must see booth. The yarn on top is W4 100% wool, worsted weight, color: cranberry. On the left is Soft Touch Heather, fingering weight, color: Sand. On the right is Soft Touch DKW, 100% wool, dk weight, color: Natural White.I wanted a pair of thrummed mittens for a while now, and I knew that they had kits at the festival. In this booth where I bought the kit, I also ran into my sewing teacher, Cassandra from Purl Patchwork, trying out drop spindles. I then proceeded to ask her for her opinion on spinning wheels. She basically gave me a testimonial to the brand of wheel that I had in mind.This is some rayon chenille that I plan on making a blanket with. I only bought it because it was cheap and the sample blanket was so soft.On the left is called Mystery Bump from Still River Mill. The mystery is that a bunch of different fibers are carded together and the colors may be different inside. It's mostly alpaca. The green ball on the right is Corriedale, 8oz. Don't let the pics deceive you. They are huge!The braids are from Cloverleaf Farms and they are all Merino Top, very soft. And the bag of white is fiber is Cormo & Silk Roving from Foxfire Fiber. These are so pretty. I want to hang them up as decorations.

You may wonder why I bought so much fiber when I clearly don't spin. DH offered to buy me a wheel for Christmas this year and how could I say no? I thought I was going to buy my wheel at Rhinebeck, but no one had the one I wanted in stock. They all offered to drop ship it to me from New Zealand. I saw a lot of wheels and tried 3. One vendor had the one I wanted as a floor model already assembled. I tried out that wheel and noticed two nicks on top. There was no way I wanted to pay full price on a floor model with nicks on it.This pic was also taken before the Yarn Coma set in. I saw these cute Fair Isle hats at one booth and wanted to get one for Melody. My friend insisted on buying it for Melody, but she let me pick the one I wanted.She actually has a pretty big head, but she is petite in body size. I knew the 1yr old size would fit her right now, but wanted something she could wear for a while. I picked out the 2yr old size. It's too big, but at least she can grow into it.

Rhinebeck is so much fun and I am glad that I went. There were lots of cute animals to see there. The Alpacas and Llamas were adorable. I only went on Saturday, 9:30am until 6pm, but enough damage had been done to my wallet in one day's time. My friend didn't want to go on Sunday because she knows she will blow her budget on the second day and she has no will power. She needs to convert her house from oil to gas and that is going to cost anywhere from $5,000 to $7,000. So, in order to save her from over spending, I told her I was not going to go on Sunday and made her buy the one day pass. She would go if I did and I probably would have bought more, too. Knitters are enablers so it's best to avoid the temptation all together by not going the second day.

With the traffic from the festival, we left at 6pm and didn't get back to Beacon until 7:30pm. DH and Melody drove up to pick me up and they were already waiting at my friend's house. We hung around for a bit and then drove home. It took us another 1 1/2 hours to get back to Brooklyn. I was so tired on Sunday, I could barely get up.