Rhine Beckons

Lest you think I’ve sunk to a new low with this blog title, please be advised that Ed thought of it.  I suspect he came up with it in self-defense, because I have talked of nothing but Rhinebeck all week, and he is really eager to see me drive off into the sunrise on Saturday for a day of peace and quiet.  He has already filled the car up with gas.

It is hard to justify new yarn purchases on the heels of my return from Stitches East—and after organizing my stash in preparation for the photos I plan to include when I’m officially a member of Ravelry (only 3000+ people are ahead of me now!).  My “to-knit” list is huge.  But I have been mulling my Rhinebeck purchases all week, and trying to show some intelligence and restraint.

So, what do I have in mind?  This is probably my sixth visit to Rhinebeck.  I was overwhelmed on my first visit, and I don’t recall buying much more than small amounts of yarn for scarves and socks.  On subsequent visits, I continued to buy small amounts of yarn to try out, eventually making larger purchases by contacting the vendor after the festival.  Sometimes I only take the vendor’s information and buy color cards so I can buy yarn later. And so my strategy has evolved into arming myself with some idea of a likely project and going to the booths I’ve targeted.  I also leave myself open to surprises—vendors who have something different from past years or vendors who I’ve somehow overlooked in the past.  This is how I discovered the beautiful Brooks Farm Acero, and a beautiful yarn of llama two years ago.

My strategy for this year is to head to the Botanical Shades booth first.  There is no website for this yarn, but I did buy the color cards in past years and I’ve been obsessed by the colors of this naturally-dyed yarn for several years.  There is a sweater in an old Knitter’s (Fall 1999, one of their best issues, which also has the Thora sweater I’ll be knitting soon) that would show off this yarn nicely.

I was similarly captivated by the yarn at Snow Star Farm (red yarn, shown at the top of the photo) in past years, and I do have stash yarn from them—and a sweater in mind. 

I might head to the Frelsi Farm booth for the Icelandic-silk lace-weight mix (not enough yardage left by time I got there last year).

And I will buy 2000 yards of some other sweater yarn for a project to be decided—or get the color cards and mull over the options when I get home.

So tune in on Sunday to see what I actually bought.

All this week, I worked on finishing Ed’s sweater, and I’m nearly there.  The seams are now turning out as neatly as I hoped, but this didn’t happen on the first try.  When I was a new knitter, I was always surprised that published patterns didn’t arrange for the ribbing to line up invisibly when you assembled your knitted pieces.  About the earliest modification to patterns that I made was to add a stitch or two to the ribbing to make it look seamless on the garment.  For 1x1 ribbing, this means leaving a knit stitch at the end of each piece so you can take ½ stitch on each side in the seam and have the appearance of a full stitch on the outside of the seam.

In the case of Ed’s sweater, I also carried this idea along the seams of the body so that there would be a row of knits going up the sides, mirroring the row of twisted knits between the cables.  [Once again, I am having an impossible time photographing this yarn so its beautiful, rich green color is even close to accurate—but you can appreciate the seam.]

Another bout of unexpected warmth has made it hard to work on this sweater for the past few days (is summer weather ever going to end?), but I think the modeling shots will be ready on Sunday or Monday.

Comments

[Luni]

That's a lovely sweater pattern. Such great details in a simple, classic jacket.
Have fun at RB.

[robin]

I can't wait to see what you buy at Rhinebeck! I almost was convincing myself to drive there this weekend (or find a cheap flight) but I decided to be sensible. Have a great time.

[tiennie]

Can't wait to see what you bring back from Rhinebeck! Hope it was fun!