Rhinebeck trip
Our Rhinebeck /New York State Sheep & Wool Festival trip was wonderful again :) Great cold clear weather, gorgeous leaves.
As usual, I go to help my Mom in her booth, Ewe & Me Merinos, which focuses on bright white merino wool for hand spinners & dyers. She's got a small farm in the NY Catskills, with between 10 - 15 sheep, depending on the year.
This year, we achieved booth veritcallity! We're both finally happy with the way we're able to take advantage of the great height available in our usual spot in building 22. We used a combination of rolling hanging racks [casters removed] and plastic garage-type shelving. Now if it's possible to replace the plastic tubing on the shelving with slightly taller [say 1/2" more] tubing, we'll really be set because then we could swap our plastic bins in & out with ease instead of having to build them into the shelves.
I like being at the booth each year - I get to spin or knit & talk to people interested in the same. I think my least favorite part is actually writing up the sales receipts & dealing with the sales. Recommending roving / top / yarn is the fun part. My mom & I compliment each other in the booth - she knows the sheep & fleeces & combs top, and I spin & knit.
The rough part is putting in three ~12 hours days [set-up on friday, selling on Saturday & Sunday], then getting home to deal with kids & husband who want attention too. At that point, I just want dinner & rest. Hmm, since we get back too late for dinner, perhaps it would go smoother if we get fair vendor food to take in the car for dinner?
I met lots of nifty people - including one Ravelry-er whose name I don't now remember who shared some of her soy-silk top with me when I complimented her drop spindling - she was doing a 12-color wheel of the soy silk to make into a lily-of-the-valley shawl. I think her Ravelry name was ***spins, only I can't remember the *** part - it was a short & fairly common female name, and Ravelry's friend search seems to not do partial words.
The Ravelry party on Saturday was amazing - we only stayed for a 15 minutes to get back home before bedtime, but it was packed, and everyone looked like they were having a fabulous time - I think _WAY_ more Ravelers showed up that expected, and I did see a police officer talking to the ELKs people as we left. I'm curious what they was about & how it resolved - it _might_ have just been a parking issue.
I was assigned the task of finding a yarn processor we liked better than Zielingers - they do a fine job on the top, but the roving is just OK and the yarn is both thicker than I want, and sheds a lot when I machine knit it, leading me to think they're breaking a LOT of fibers along the way. Also of the three batches we'd gotten from them, two were dry & cottony feeling, making me think they've over-processing it somehow. in their defense, we process the fleeces that aren't sold by the end of the season - so they tend to be the ones with more vegetable matter, or more yellow, or other less desirable traits. I scoured about 5 barns looking for processor & asking people with nice merino yarns [preferably lace weight] who processed it for them. our 3 top leads: some place in Canada - need to follow up on that vendor as they had dreamy lace weight merino skeins; Buckwheat Angoras [since we have non-coated sheep, our fleeces aren't clean enough - but she's local to our area] and Twist of Fate, who now has our fleeces to turn into roving & yarn. Taos was also recommended, but they sometimes have over a year's backlog.
I didn't actually buy any fiber, although I now want to make even _more_ stuff from my mom's yarn.
As usual, I go to help my Mom in her booth, Ewe & Me Merinos, which focuses on bright white merino wool for hand spinners & dyers. She's got a small farm in the NY Catskills, with between 10 - 15 sheep, depending on the year.
This year, we achieved booth veritcallity! We're both finally happy with the way we're able to take advantage of the great height available in our usual spot in building 22. We used a combination of rolling hanging racks [casters removed] and plastic garage-type shelving. Now if it's possible to replace the plastic tubing on the shelving with slightly taller [say 1/2" more] tubing, we'll really be set because then we could swap our plastic bins in & out with ease instead of having to build them into the shelves.
I like being at the booth each year - I get to spin or knit & talk to people interested in the same. I think my least favorite part is actually writing up the sales receipts & dealing with the sales. Recommending roving / top / yarn is the fun part. My mom & I compliment each other in the booth - she knows the sheep & fleeces & combs top, and I spin & knit.
The rough part is putting in three ~12 hours days [set-up on friday, selling on Saturday & Sunday], then getting home to deal with kids & husband who want attention too. At that point, I just want dinner & rest. Hmm, since we get back too late for dinner, perhaps it would go smoother if we get fair vendor food to take in the car for dinner?
I met lots of nifty people - including one Ravelry-er whose name I don't now remember who shared some of her soy-silk top with me when I complimented her drop spindling - she was doing a 12-color wheel of the soy silk to make into a lily-of-the-valley shawl. I think her Ravelry name was ***spins, only I can't remember the *** part - it was a short & fairly common female name, and Ravelry's friend search seems to not do partial words.
The Ravelry party on Saturday was amazing - we only stayed for a 15 minutes to get back home before bedtime, but it was packed, and everyone looked like they were having a fabulous time - I think _WAY_ more Ravelers showed up that expected, and I did see a police officer talking to the ELKs people as we left. I'm curious what they was about & how it resolved - it _might_ have just been a parking issue.
I was assigned the task of finding a yarn processor we liked better than Zielingers - they do a fine job on the top, but the roving is just OK and the yarn is both thicker than I want, and sheds a lot when I machine knit it, leading me to think they're breaking a LOT of fibers along the way. Also of the three batches we'd gotten from them, two were dry & cottony feeling, making me think they've over-processing it somehow. in their defense, we process the fleeces that aren't sold by the end of the season - so they tend to be the ones with more vegetable matter, or more yellow, or other less desirable traits. I scoured about 5 barns looking for processor & asking people with nice merino yarns [preferably lace weight] who processed it for them. our 3 top leads: some place in Canada - need to follow up on that vendor as they had dreamy lace weight merino skeins; Buckwheat Angoras [since we have non-coated sheep, our fleeces aren't clean enough - but she's local to our area] and Twist of Fate, who now has our fleeces to turn into roving & yarn. Taos was also recommended, but they sometimes have over a year's backlog.
I didn't actually buy any fiber, although I now want to make even _more_ stuff from my mom's yarn.