But Ma, all the bloggers are doing it...

A Rhinebeck update, that is!

Actually, I think it's more like "all the blogger have done it," 'cause I'm pretty late here with my Rhinebeck report. But I guess better late than never, so here's my official update, complete with some pictures (although not as many as I should have taken because I was stricken with camnesia). It's a whole week later and I'm still on a bit of a woolly high from the whole experience...

I left Long Island at the crack of dawn and met Punkin and her family at about 9:30ish at The Fold's booth. I wasn't going to buy anything from them because I didn't want to deal with the lines, but Punkin was already on line and I saw all those STR mill ends.

And thus began my trip down the rabbit hole.

After she made our purchases, we wandered around that first building. I decided that I needed some rules and a plan of attack, so here were my guidelines for the rest of the day:

• Make notes of things that I'm interested in buying (vendors, yarns, prices, and locations) and then review my notes before my actual purchases begin, and
• Don't buy anything at can generally be found at most yarn shops.

Punkin trying out a gorgeous Golding spinning wheel

So once we covered Building A and had an early lunch, I took off on my own to explore the fairgrounds...

The cutest miniature sheep!

...and start identifying purchases.

Merino/Bamboo/Nylon and Merino/Tencel sock yarns from Ellen's Half Pint Farm

FlockSock Yarn from Holiday Yarns

Alpaca Blend sock yarn from Snowshoe Farm

Shelridge Farm Soft Touch Ultra Fingering weight yarn

Hebrides scarf kit from Autumn House Farm

Supersock from Creatively Dyed Yarn (Dianne was such a sweetheart!)

At the end of the day then I wound up revisiting The Fold and just had to have this...

Luscious Single Silk in Typhoon Tina from Blue Moon Fiber Arts

And then there were a few non-fiberous purchases...

DPN/Circular needle case from CrippenWorks

An irresistible sheep mug.

And finally, my biggest purchase--a Golding "Learn to Spin" kit!

Ooooooo...

There were several roving purchases, but those pictures didn't come out so great. I'll retake and show you those in a future post.

So how did I do sticking to my plan? Not bad really. Since I didn't hotel it as I had originally planned, I added that money to my budgeted amount and, ultimately, I only went about $35 over what I had planned to spend.

All in all, it was a wonderful day. The one big regret I did have was not seeing more people. I missed seeing a ton of people. I got wrapped up exploring the whole place and totally lost track of time--including the afternoon Ravelry meet up. Next year (if I get to go next year, that is) I'm gonna focus more on the people.