Rhinebeck weekend

First thing I have to do is thank my lovely girls for producing such lovely wool and my husband who takes such wonderful care of them. 

So the weekend started for me officially on Thursday night, which was pack up the van with the entire contents of the wool cave.

Empty wool cave.

Browsing Rhinebeck related sites

We left early Friday morning for the 5 hour drive to Rhinebeck.

These are the first landmarks I recognize from the last time we came to Rhinebeck

Went directly there and yes, sure enough, there was my booth space waiting for us.  Rich and I were joking that we were going to get there and they would tell us they changed their minds and we weren't vending after all.  Not funny, but does illustrate the disbelief we still felt even driving down that we were vending at Rhinebeck.

That's our name on the sign!

 Got the booth setup, it was a lot wider than I expected.  My neighbor didn't use all her space, and Me like a jerk began to set up in the space she didn't use without asking her if it was ok.  She sweetly told me she was going to use it for storage, so could I please move my stuff.  Geesh, I am an idiot.  Way to make new friends Jen.  Still cringing with shame over that one.

This was how we left it Friday night

Neighbor across from us was really friendly and helpful, I stole her idea of putting the checkout table front and center creating a lane around the perimeter of the booth.  Worked out great.

Finished setting up and had a terrific dinner. 

Hotel was abominable.  Just gross and very noisy.  Something that sounded like pigeons, people coming in and out at all hours, fridge made a weird sound and the heat turned on with a lovely explosion every 40 minutes or so.  Will need to make reservations asap for next year.

Next morning began with an early start to drop off a couple things, tear around the show to say hello to local friends and people I know from Fingerlakes.  Then it was off to the races, and man it was busy.  Normally I get to spin during the shows between customers, but there was no between customers.

my first customer!

Huge line for the opening

I was excited to be on someone's list, she was looking for me at WNY

 Don't remember much that evening, we went to dinner and back to hotel to pass out.


Sunday was a little rainy, not as busy but still really steady.  Rich kept on slipping away to look at lemers.  I guess there was a guy with a variety of caged animals including lemers which Rich has always loved.

Note the wheel is gone, a very excited young woman took it home, Another Majacraft Rose Spinner joined the ranks!

This is Sunday afternoon - the millspun yarn and processed roving did really well - that was a new thing for us.

I guess there were a lot of famous people there, I don't know any designers or writers so I was oblivious.  I kept on wanting to ask people, "Are you somebody?".  But I didn't, because that would have been rude.

Came up with a brilliant idea Sunday morning, to ask people to spin a little of my wool on my wheel, then at the end I'm going to make a skein with all their contributions.  My Rhinebeck 2019 skein.  I'll work on that later on today maybe.

So it ended at 4, we packed up and drove to Amsterdam NY, stayed the night and left Monday morning, arrived home at around 11 am.

Great to be home, looking forward to next year!  Thanks to everyone that popped in to say hello, we loved every second of our time at Rhinebeck!!!!