What Happened To Hippie Blue?

Saturday past, Hippie Blue was given to my niece.  It was her first glimpse of the sweater.  She was even afraid to try it on in case it didn't fit.  With one arm in the sweater, she said  " Oh Wow!  This sleeve  is  the perfect length."  Off to a good start.

In the end, everything fit. The bust, the waist,  the length, and most importantly - the hips. (Blog details explaining the tailoring to create the perfect fit are here. )

She loved it.  And I loved that she loved it.  Maybe she'll ask for another.

The Great Hat Give-Away

Saturday.  The great hat give-away was sure fun.  In all, I knit nine of the H2-0 Hats and three cowls. All except two hats were taken.  I addition, I almost lost my Talbot Trail Shawl. 

 

I had to jump in quickly to retrieve it from the pile. 

Here is the fun.

 Niece Christie, with boyfriend Noah in the background.  Sister Katie with her back to the camera.

 Nieces Andrea - she's wearing Hippie Blue -  and her sister Kim.

 Noah being funny. Wearing a cowl and  the pink hat  that Christie chose. 

 Christie with her pink hat.

 Friend Molly chose the light coloured hat.

Noah's head is a big bigger than the H2-0 pattern allows for, it would seem.

  Guess he'll get a specially fit knit soon.

It was great fun to see them all so appreciative about getting a hand-knit hat.  I was a double winner - triple actually.  I used up tons of stash yarn, had the enjoyment  of knitting the hats, and the great fun of giving them away. 

Leaving Rhinebeck

Last post about my trip to Rhinebeck.  Promise.

Rhinebeck is located in the Hudson River Valley.  We crossed the river each day driving from hotel to show.  The  mighty Hudson from the looks of it.  The area around Rhinebeck boasts rolling hills, curving, winding roads, hardwood forests and historic buildings - the Inn in the centre of town was constructed in 1766!  A lovely place to visit at any time of year, it seemed to me.  But the third weekend in October, it is home to what is reputed to be North America's largest Sheep & Wool Festival.  Some of the facts I learned while there, sure seemed to confirm that status.

We spoke to a fleece judge at breakfast Saturday morning.  He said he judged fleece at the Taos Sheep & Wool Festival.  There were 37 fleece.  At Rhinebeck there were 681.

The parking lot space  totalled 50 acres.  The size of a small farm.

Our booth was in barn # 31. 

It took us an hour and a half to get out of the fairgrounds to the highway Saturday night.  After waiting one hour beyond closing to leave.

According to the number of sales slips for Saturday, we did a customer transaction every three minutes for the entire 8 hours. Considering these are the old-fashioned, 'che-ching',  paper transactions   -   the electronic signal in a barn never works  -  most take longer than three minutes to write up.  Therefore there are long lines at the cash.

Saturday, there was no time to eat.  At 4pm, a friend from my London Ontario days came by and asked "Do you need anything?"  I replied that we needed lunch.  We hadn't eaten since 7am.  She volunteered to stay in the booth  while I ran out to a food concession to buy us a couple of  wet, soggy, tasteless 'beef on a bun'.  Thanks, Sharon.  4pm was late - but sure better than never.

Canadians from Port Elgin - ladies from Doc Knits, Creemore, Ottawa, Londoon,  Toronto, Peterborough and Quebec City stopped by to say hi. 

When the few Americans commented on  the 4.125% local, county tax we had to charge, we responded that we were from Ontario where shoppers pay 13%.  Their response?  "Yes, but you have health care."  Just a reminder of our good fortune here in Canada.

Although I never left our barn and didn't even get out of our booth until an hour before closing on Sunday afternoon, I did manage to capture  some of the colours displayed in barn #31.

 

Then it was 7 pm Sunday night.  Our  trailer  was packed. The fairgrounds were emptying. 

We started for home.  Goodbye Rhinebeck.

Rhinebeck

Rhinebeck again.  Our weather at Rhinebeck for the most part was milder and dryer than here at home, beside Georgian Bay.  But Sunday it changed.  Although still sunny and dry, the temperature dropped and a cool breeze brought out everyone's  woolies.  Perfect attire for a wool festival. Here are a few of the most fabulous that stopped by our booth.

The lady in the Norwegian ski sweater below, told us she scored the sweater at her local Good Will for $12.  She was very proud.  Her friend's hat is fabulous.

This knitter is wearing a  Cameo, one of Shelridge Yarn's latest pattern releases in gorgeous colours.

The last minute knitter  below,  sewed in her ends before leaving her hotel for Sunday's show.  This is  a Vogue pattern she said.  Fabulous, fabulous, sweater coat.

I loved how this knitter had a scarf that matched her sweater.  She knit  the sweater and a friend knit the scarf for her as a birthday gift.

This fellow, wearing his wife's knitting, I had to chase after and ask if I could take his picture.  Hand knit hat, Inspira Cowl that used up all the leftovers in her stash, the wife said and a hand knit sweater.  I should have checked his socks.

Below is  my favouirte knit 'view' of the show.  These knitters - look how young they are - met on ravlery, discovered they all live in the same area, formed a knitting club and now get together regularly to knit.  They decided to knit the same sweater pattern and all wear that sweater to Rhinebeck.  Isn't  that a wonderful story?

A Tour Of The Festival

Day 2 at Rhinebeck is set up day.  While we unloaded the trailer yesterday, claiming our spot, today we got down to the business of setting up the booth.

 The goal in booth set up is sales. Make it look  attractive to customers. Make the customers want to stop and look at the goods.  Make the customer buy your stuff.

We think we got it.

With our work done for the day, we took a stroll around the grounds.    The New York Sheep and Wool Festival  - known to knitters as 'Rhinebeck' -  takes place at the local fairgrounds.  Like no fairgrounds I've ever seen.  50 acres of parking and landscaping - who ever heard of landscaping at the fairgrounds?

I leave you with some pictures of the fairgrounds.  Look where knitting has taken me.

Happy knitting everyone.

Arrival In Rhinebeck

 No customers yet, the festival isn't open til Saturday.  But no rest for the vendors.  The secret to making a vendor's life easy  in terms of set up, is to arrive early.  If there aren't many booths already in place, one can drive their vehicle right into the show room.  Miss that window of opportunity and it means a lot of carrying from the parking lot.

Lyn and I pulled into our space by 3 pm today. The trailer is unloaded,

and all our stuff is in our space.

Not prettily placed yet, but time  for that first thing tomorrow morning.


Once our day's work was done, we took a walk around.  I was amazed to see where all the vedors came from.

Ending the day with a great meal in a wonderful French restaurant 

was the perfect way to bribe the staff  me for all the hard slugging tomorrow will entail.

Marooned.

Blogging has been sporadic around the Harris Household this month. Due partly to the many social commitments I seem to have been involved with.  Lest you think I am extremely popular, these were mostly duty-type social engagements.  Cooking for 25 after a golf tourny.  A 90th birthday dinner three hours from home.  Time spent replacing the flooring in our basement that was destroyed in our spring flood.  Well, I didn't do much in the replacing department - just cooked and hosted son #2 who came for 4 days to help Fred. 

Then there was some fun time hanging out at Sis's cottage for a couple of days.  The weather was very wet and windy so we had to do some touristy shopping - and practise my selfies.

Add all those social commitments to the lack of knitting progress and there didn't seem to be enough 'news' to create a decent post. 

 I can't believe how long it has taken to knit one sleeve of my latest project.  Every night, despite a couple of hours of knitting, this sleeve has remained right here. 

 

No gain at all.  I think it has flesh eating disease of a knitting nature.  Knit two inches, go to bed.Those inches disappear and it is still the same length as it was the day before.  Marooned, I've been.  On sleeve island.  I think, though that I see shore ahead.

What One Wears At The Trunk Show

What is a trunk show?  In knitters' parlance, at least, a designer packs his/her trunk with newly -knitted garments, drives to meet up with a group of knitters, opens the trunk and shows off the knitting. 

Or in the case of Purl 3's trunk show with Deb Gemmell, the garments were brought into the store.

And despite the late summer heat, all the knitters took turns  wearing  the newly-knit, Circular Yoke, wool! sweaters.  Worn  at least long enough to check themselves out in the mirror.

Worn atop a sun dress!  What a fashion plate am I!


Carol below, much more fashion conscious than I, does not look impressed.

Next time you are invited to a trunk show, don't worry about your hair.  Don't worry about your clothes.  They dress you when you get there.