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.