An Orgy of Wool

May I have your attention please!
Ahem...

Baby camels are very soft.* Please make a note of it.

Now on to your regularly scheduled blog.

Rhinebeck was FAN-DAMN-TABULOUS!!! A few million other people seemed to think so too, as the place was wicked crowded. Wool and yarn and roving and fair food was a flyin' everywhere. And there was much rejoicing.

Walking towards the main gate, I had an irrational urge to throw my arms in the air and run around screaming, but no one else seemed to be doing that, so I abstained. I also failed to find anyone jumping with abandon into big piles of yarn. Too bad. I think I behaved myself fairly well. I put back a lot of what I didn't really want to put back, I picked up the stuff I was looking for, and made two really excellent finds. (And a Christmas present.)

In the "Wendy, you suck" category, I ended up parking almost right next to Cara from January One, walked right past her in the parking lot, then saw her TWO MORE TIMES (both times in the seven mile long line for The Fold, hmmmm....) and those of you who know me won't be surprised to know I didn't say a word. Damnit. Then I also chickened out at the blogger meet up. There were hundreds of them, all happy and stuff, and I couldn't do it. I'm a big freaking chicken! In my defense, I did talk to a lot of strangers in various lines. It was awesome - you'd be standing in line, and someone would walk by wearing a fabulous hand knitted item, and some other woman would literally grab her arm and yell, what pattern is that? It's gorgeous! What yarn did you use? And a lot of chatting would ensue, and the fabulous item wearing woman would continue on. And I had a lovely conversation in the Greek gyro line about how, "OH GOD, what if they run out just as we get to the front?!" and "When we get up there, we should buy like 10 of them and scalp them to the people in the back of the line."

Three hineys all in a row.

I saw my first Shetland sheep and am madly, desperately in love. It is now my life's dream to raise Shetlands and hug and kiss them all day long. They're so little! They're about 2 or 3 inches shorter than Zeke, but stockier and fluffy. And their wool is so soft and colorful! The little stinkers are also impossible to photograph! They just won't hold still.

Excuse me, could you just--

--now look this way...

Don't stick your head through the bars! That's naughty!

Oh, for the love of---


OK, more tomorrow. It's late and a girl's got knitting to do!
_____
*No, I didn't actually touch a baby camel. I stuck my hand in a bag of fluff labeled "baby camel." I was tempted to crawl inside the bag, but it was too small...