Planning and dreaming

Well it is September again which means the start of festival season for me. I now have a couple of festivals that I attend. Lucky me! In a couple of weeks I will be going to the Southern Adirondack Fiber Festival. It is a small but fruitful festival. All of the festival fun with way less crowd pressure and presence, which makes it more enjoyable and laid back. 

I've been saving my money and have a few repeat vendors I need to see and a few new ones to check out too. I am totally getting another knitting bag from JessaLu. I have barely been able to wait a whole year since I fell in love with last year's bag.

Come on cute sheep knitting on a knitting bag, what's not to love about that? And we all know I have enough projects in progress that I can fill a knitting bag or two. I don't think I will make the same mistake as last year and turn down a smaller accessories bag. I may even get a bag for my spindle, I just don't know, but I am giddy with excitement I can tell you that.

Then in October the mac daddy of fiber festivals on the east coast, Rhinebeck, more formally known as NY Sheep and Wool Festival. It is big. It is popular. It is wooly!

I love Rhinebeck for all its wooly fumes and goodness. I may even use it a girls day out this year. Do you think Kisknit would come with me if I promise to make her scones and tea? 

Some people have a tradition of knitting a new/special sweater for Rhinebeck. I've never done it. I've knit sweaters but never in time for an event. I just don't like that kind of pressure. This year is different though. I started this sweater earlier this year but then it was too warm to work on a sweater and I knew I would not be able to wear it when I was done so it went into a bag to bide its time. 

It is wool that I bought last year at Rhinebeck, the only time I've bought a sweater's worth of wool at a festival. Don't you think that earns it the right to be my first Rhinebeck sweater (RS)? Yeah me too.

When I pulled it out a week ago it was what you see of the body and a few inches on one of the sleeves. I would not even have considered it as a RS but I've managed to knit most of a sleeve in that week and still have six weeks to do the other sleeve, a collar and body. 

The lovely cabling down the sleeves is the only thing slowing me down, but since I am only slow and not yet defeated I am going to make a run at it. Hey the body will be straight stockinette stitch, I can do that in my sleep. Now I just need to remember what I learned about waist shaping and I will be all set.

SAdkFF and Rhinebeck here I come!