Because I assure you, Disney hasn't got a thing on New York State Sheep & Wool.
Oh dear gods, where do I start? I'm so over stimulated I've developed a twitch in my eyelid. And I just told my mom she'd have to call me tomorrow to tell me something because I just don't have any ability to process information today. I'm exhausted. And it looks like the amazing technicolor dreamsheep exploded in my living room.
Let's just start with it was the best day ever, twice over. I saw friends, and acquaintances and met so many people who were new to me, all of us excited and eager and happy.
Friday night Cassie and I drove up in a state of total disarray. I picked her up at the train and told her we couldn't leave yet because I hadn't packed, and then the poor thing had to watch me wander vaguely and distractedly round the house picking things up and making terribly terribly difficult packing decisions for an hour (These jeans? Those? This knitting? That?), then we had to find the directions. And gas. And diet coke. And it rained, and rained and rained.
We stopped at a rest stop on the NYS Thruway and spotted some cash dropped on the ground - I thought I knew which people in the crowd had just gotten out of that car and went chasing after them, while Cassie followed more slowly with the money we'd found. She told me later she was so tired that it took her a few minutes to recognize what she had in her hand as currency, so I am glad I was not alone in my spaciness.
But then we were there at the Marriott, and there was a warm room full of knitting folk and wine, (a personal favorite of mine on the combination front) organized by Norma on behalf of Nathania's upcoming nuptials.
Jackie and Cassie (the other one) were there, and the Divine Ms Em, of all of whom I can never have too much, and Norma of course, so lovely to see again, and Teresa whom I met at Claudia's but this weekend really had a chance to talk to a little bit, and Cara who was the only one brave enough to be knitting on something with a chart at such a time, and I met Jen, and Ann and Vicky, and Nathania and Laura J with the mammoth tooth spindle I covet, and later more people came in from dinner and Claudia was there, and Leigh and Carolyn, and Alice (who, shockingly, has no blog) and my girls Laurie and Julia and this was all just Friday night.
You see how it might be overwhelming? We hadn't even gotten to the wool yet.
Saturday is just a kaleidoscope. In no particular order, an incomplete sampling:
In the car we learned something about Julia and incense that made us all laugh so hard I almost drove off the road.
Judy recognized my shawl. I was beside myself. Woman, you made my day. Really.
The woman in front of Julia and me in line for lunch had an exquisite pullover draped over her arm that she was kind enough to let me photograph. She said the pattern was Greek and she lost it a long time ago. I was very taken with it.
After lunch I ran for the fleece sale, where my plan to follow Mamacate around and suck wool knowledge from her like a parasite was thwarted by the fact that I was 20 minutes late and there were so many people in such a small tent that I almost turned around and walked out. And yet I managed to get a fleece anyway.
Yes, I bought a fleece. It is so beautiful it deserves a post of its own. Her name is Gladys.
And I saw Mindy but was seduced away from her by Amy dangling the lure of Norm Hall's wheels and never found her again. I hope you had fun....I'm an immoral wheel floozy and I'm so sorry I failed to re-locate you.
I remember my darling Melanie blowing me kisses across the hill, and the worst sandwich I've ever eaten but I was so hungry I didn't care, and a whole group of us ransacking the Carolina Homespun both.
I was so out of my own body I actually bought patterned sock yarn. Sock yarn! I've never done that before.
I think I hugged Kay in the sock booth. I know I touched the sleeve of the black denim cable sweater worn by her daughter, which has so converted me to the possibilities of denim yarn. Of course they don't make the black any more. Bastards.
I know I bought a sweaters worth of silver organic merino yarn that is....you know how people always say things are like butter? This is - butter, or full cream, or velvet, like a 19th century heroine's complexion. It is THE yarn, the yarn that all other yarns hope to live up to, or perhaps be when they grow up.
And pink ivory (which is somehow wood) mini needles/hair sticks at Grafton Fibers.
I remember watching a nice woman showing Cassie and Jen how to spindle spin (watching these two succumb to the lure of the spin was the most fun thing out of all the fun things that happened this weekend) and realizing halfway through that she's Emmajane. Wait, I know you. Sort of. Hi, Emmajane.
I saw Risa and her twins, and met Carrioke and Marcia, and saw Marcy (who should know I almost had an accident when I got to try a Norm Hall wheel). And I met Stephanie, and her Eris which is so beautiful I can hardly stand it and now I know what I am doing with the Silkroad Tweed DK in the stash, I can tell you.
I met and saw so many people I cannot even begin to sort them all out in my head.
And I saw so much fiber and met vendors and was rained on, and baked in the sun and saw a juggler with the most eye-searing orange polyester argyle ensemble that it hurts to remember.
The whole day was like being caught in a river - the current eddies you together and then sends you off in another direction and you are carried along.
In the evening many, many knitters and bloggers gathered in the lobby and there was pizza and knitting and look what I got and talking. I met Kelly there, and Elisa and Stitchy and sat at Melanie's feet admiring the beige she is knitting for love.
Sunday I began with Adelaide and Cassie and Norma and Icelandic wool - which is a pretty damn good way to start any day - and then met the New York Girls who were just arriving and spent pretty much the rest of the day with Valentina and her soccer ball and Heather and Sara and Gi and Sarah, somehow acquiring in the process an enormous bag of fiber, including another 1/2 a fleece, a Mary Pratt blue ribbon that I split with Kim. Yes, bunnycrack Kim.
We wound down the day remembering to say goodbye to anyone we ran into (many thanks to Ann for the fries I filched - inexplicably served in a cardboard bowl shaped like a pet bowl, but nonetheless delicious) and shopping, and eating lamb ravioli - oh my god the goodness - and the Best Chocolate Ever (No fooling. The best. They are on 'a mission to serve incredible chocolate treats' and boy do they) and we came to rest on the benches by the 4-H booth where Cassie advanced the cause of spinning in the world by teaching Sara and Heather and Valentina how to drop spindle with this gorgeous blue Finn-mohair that the proprietress at the Fold included with the spindles we all bought, bringing her (Cassie's) total number of spinning converts for the weekend to five.
She does good work.
This is what the car looked like. Bear in mind that the suitcase is Cassie's - my bags were in the back seat.
Then we drove home and got everything out and admired it and took pictures and I'll have to tell you about that in a separate post because I am tired and the links took a long time and I have to go to the gym. I have some thoughts about the marvelous flexibility of this community - room for everyone from Orthodox nuns to tattooed young goths and not an eyelash batted. I'll have to see if a few hours sleep can help me develop them.
I think I'll take the fleece to knitting tonight. No one could possibly mind the smell, could they? We don't want to be separated.