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Yarn Safaris Goes to Rhinebeck Article Source:
Written by: Peta Bailey Author's email: tours@yarnsafaris.com Credits: Photographs by Peta Bailey A sheep and wool festival is an opportunity to get to know your yarn from sheep to shawl; meet the folks who raise fiber animals; learn what’s involved in processing their fleece; try your hand at spinning or dying; and -- best of all -- purchase unique and wonderful hand-dyed yarns for your stash. The New York State Sheep and Wool Festival (aka Rhinebeck) in Rhinebeck, New York, one of the largest in the country with a marketplace of more than 350 vendors, takes place annually the third weekend of October and is a surefire destination for Boston-based Yarn Safaris tours. We stayed at the Village Square Inn in Hyde Park, New York, an affordable but not fancy motel about ten minutes from Rhinebeck, which is conveniently located across the street from the vintage Hyde Park Diner where we had several memorable meals and met tables full of other fiber fanatics headed to Rhinebeck. Sunday was less crowded and we spent less time shopping and more time admiring the fiber animals on display (angora goats are still my personal favorite); checking out the shearing demonstrations and the sheep dog trials; and watching spinning demonstrations by area guilds. Now I regret resisting the urge to buy more Icelandic yarn from Pennsylvania-based Tintagel Farms. Accommodations fill quickly for Rhinebeck, so if you decide to go next year make sure to book early. Options include several bed and breakfasts, the Beekman Arms & Delamater Inn, and the Village Motel in Rhinebeck. Kingston, NY, about 15 minutes away, is home to several large hotels include the Marriott and Holiday Inn. Or, if you live in the greater Boston area, sign up for Yarn Safaris’ Rhinebeck tour. If you need to convince a non fiber fanatic to accompany you to Rhinebeck, it may be helpful to know that Hyde Park, New York is home to three national historic sites: the home of Franklin D. Roosevelt; Val-Kil, Eleanor Roosevelt’s country cottage; and the Vanderbilt Mansion. For more photos of the 2006 New York Sheep & Wool Festival, please visit Yarn Safaris’ Rhinebeck photo gallery. Meet the Author:
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Rhinebeck, New York is a three-and-a-half hour drive from Boston in prime leaf-peeping season. We broke up the tour by stopping at Colorful Stitches, in Lenox, which offers two floors of yarn in a beautiful Berkshires setting. Even though we knew we would be tempted by so many glorious yarns over the next two days, I and several other group members couldn’t resist adding to their stashes by purchasing yarns on sale, including Jaeger Matchmaker DK merino (at 40 percent off).
On Saturday morning, fellow fiber fanatics were already lined up when we pulled into the fairground parking lot at ten minutes to ten. As soon as the gates opened, many knitters headed to Blue Moon Fiber Arts to purchase Socks that Rock yarn. I passed on the sock yarn (way too much in my stash) but quickly made my first purchase at Maine-based Frelsi Farms: DK Icelandic yarn dyed in variegated fall colors - a perfect souvenir to remember the weekend’s fall colors. Next, I relented on sock yarn and purchased a mohair-blend sock kit from Foxhill Farms in Lenox, MA. And I couldn’t pass up the gorgeous yarn variegated in shades of purple from A Good Shepherd in Vermont. Several group members stocked up on Jamie Harmon’s soft angora in glorious colors. There were two Morehouse Farms booths at Rhinebeck and we also headed over to the store in Milan, NY, a ten-minute drive from Rhinebeck, to ogle the fabulous color ways, hang out with fellow knitters, and meet the authors on hand to sign their books. We were too tired to go to the knitters’ and spinners’ gathering at the Marriott in Kingston that night and instead saved our energy for day two at Rhinebeck. 
