"My Brain Is Full."

When preparing a Rhinebeck debrief, I often feel like I've been assigned to write a "what I did over the summer" essay. It's the kind of situation where everybody probably had a similar day.

In my case, I came home from it with a sudden, and rather strong, head cold. As did one of my companions. It was odd. One minute I was fine, if a bit sleep deprived.
The next minute I was sick.

Apart from that, it was a sensory-overload kind of day. Lots of slightly hysterical chatting with friends. Lots of color, everywhere. Yarn. Yarn like a four-letter word. So much yarn, in so many brilliant and subtle and overwhelming shades and textures, that you could hardly take it in.

I overheard one woman (while standing in line to pay for my first batch of purchases) remark that she ought to have brought her daughter with her, since she had a school project that required her to take pics of various textures.

It was hugely crowded - more so than when I went last year (though perhaps that was a Saturday vs. Sunday difference) - and at first I wasn't sure I could handle the crush in the yarn barns.

But then I started to get the hang of it. I realized it was like looking at art in a crowded gallery - you can't see it all, so you just go to the ones that you are drawn to, and let the rest be.

I also decided not to try and see the whole range of things before purchasing, since I'd never be able to find a particular yarn again after I'd left it. The result of this strategy was, of course, that I bought too much.

On the other hand, it's all special. Handmade, locally made, with these delicious little labels, like "Super-Awesome Hand-Dyed Yarn by Melody." How could I resist? And for the record, it is, indeed, super-awesome.

Trying to describe the fair to a neophyte, I said something along the lines of "It's like a state fair crossed with the world's biggest and best yarn store." What I neglected to mention is that it's also a parade of handknitted things being worn by their makers. I saw a lot of pretty sweaters. A lot of pretty shawls. A lot of inventive headcoverings and a lot of handknit mittens.

I saw a mom and daughter walk up to a woman spinning some technicolor roving and get an impromptu lesson in how a drop spindle works.

I saw wooly little goats in a row being judged on their - er - woolyness, I imagine. I saw sheep being sheared by people whose own locks had a similarly tousled quality. I saw people running into friends they don't see very often. Heck, I even ran into one of my own - or rather, was run into, since she was the one who spied me, miraculously, five minutes after I'd walked through the gate, and scooped me into a hug.

I ate too much kettle corn, and rum cookies that my friend Batman had made (yum), and thought about drinking beer but then thought about the bathroom line.

And then I packed it all up into my bike bags and rode it all home (from a friend's place in a nearby 'hood, mind you), giggling a bit maniacally about the weird silhouette I made, with a bag of yarn strapped against the outside of the pannier, which was itself full of yarn.

PS. Yes, I'm going to show you what I bought. But like the event itself, there's so much going on in pics of Rhinebeck that it seems best to mete them out in small doses.