travelling shoes: rhinebeck 2019

i went to my very first rhinebeck this year (also known as the new york sheep & wool festival), and it was adorable and absurdly busy and heartening and overwhelming and predictable in its own ways. i was able to connect with friends i’ve only known online up to this point, made new friends, found new inspiring farms and natural dyers, and came home with a small but mighty haul.

i was invited by ana of circle of stitches to join her airbnb crew for the weekend, which was definitely the way to go. i would not recommend attending rhinebeck on your own or staying in the nearby hotel, unless you like hoards of yarn-drunk knitters 24/7, which is cool if that’s your thing. personally, i enjoyed attending the festival but also very much needed the retreat to our private cabin half an hour away buried in the hudson valley for the weekend to feel like an actual vacation.

the land we were staying on was very heavy, so i did a short visit into the woods and then retreated back to the main house because the land was clearly not interested in my footprints. we got to watch a herd of deer at basically all hours of the day in exchange though, which felt pretty special.

rhinebeck itself felt like a larger version of manitoba fibre fest, which was absolutely perfect. turns out i missed out on a fibre festival in ontario on the same weekend though, so it actually inspired me to add a new section to from field to skin’s map - fibre festivals! they’re such a great way of connecting with your local fibresheds, but often we don’t even know that they exist, so hopefully by at least adding locations to the map, anyone looking for one local to them will be able to use that. as for rhinebeck, i was particularly stoked to connect with so many farms and natural dyers, and my little haul included a skein of sock yarn from my friends at prado de lana, another skein of sock yarn dyed with their homegrown indigo from foster sheep farm, and a copy of stephany wilkes’ book raw material: working wool in the west.

sweet little bonus: chris, ana, and i went to lil’ deb’s oasis in nearby hudson on our last night for supper on lyle’s suggestion. it is the most wonderful little queer spot with seriously delicious food and drinks, so if you find yourself in the area, i would 10/10 recommend popping in. remember to ask for your server’s pronouns.