Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival

The weather was great for the Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool Festival this year.

Our first priority was to buy Sardinian sheep and goat cheeses. In the same building a woman was doing a spinning demo on a pendulum wheel. The wheel was made by her husband of koa wood from Hawaii.
It is a "walking" wheel that you sit down at - http://youtube.com/watch?v=jEcBvR7n8OI

There was a woman using an antique sock machine there too.

We checked in with Misty Mountain. I have a black ram Linda bred.

We saw the antique pendulum wheel at Merlin Tree. My friend, Cyndy, wound up spinning on that wheel the next day. After that we had cappucino and a death-by-Belgian-chocolate brownie.

Then we started wandering thru the barns in a semi organized way. I really wanted to see the strange looking bluefaced Leicester sheep. It had started to get pretty crowded by the time we were walking thru all the different barns. There were more food vendors and more fiber vendors than before. I bought a rosemary plant and admired the Mongolian felted hats and some amazing roving in soft shades of blues and pale greens.The weather was perfect, but pretty warm for handknits so there was not as much of a "fashion show" in the crowds walking by. The leaves were gorgeous on the way home. The view of cloud-shade dappled river banks and distant mountains we saw driving over the Hudson River bridge was awesome.

Dyeing to spin!

Processing……..processing……… All the fleeces are shorn. For the first time this year I sheared 20 sheep - - some twice - spring and fall -, but it still counts.

I kept two baby Finn lamb fleeces for myself, one cushy charcoal grey and one cottony white. The skirtings from the fleeces I sold have all been washed and some dyed and now I can have the fun of blending all the bright colors from the Jacquard acid dyes.

Judy gave me some walnuts and I tried dyeing with them using equal parts of vinegar and water which did yield a more russet color. I still have the rest of the hulls soaking. I set the nuts out to dry before trying to crack them and when I went back to get them, the squirrels had made off with them all.

Finn lambs available

Two of these purebred Finnsheep lambs, born Aug 23 are still available for $185 each and could be picked up on your way back from Rhinebeck Sunday night if your way takes you along I-84 in PA. These are quads, the black ewe lamb from the litter is already sold. There is one ewe lamb and one ram lamb. The other ram lamb is spoken for.

The sire is pictured in the Nov 06 blog archive. The dam is a four year old who had ten lambs last year - - five in the spring and five more in the fall. She has had 21 lambs in four years! I am to blame for her bad haircut.