Not only did I get everything I wanted, and a little more, but I got to meet up with friends, meet a few great folks, and overall enjoyed myself.

Purchases
I didn’t buy that much (Mel is thinking I’m lying right now), but I did spend a lot.

My first visit was with Dr. Mel himself.

I also ran into Mel’s partner, David a few minutes later, and those two make a wonderful couple. Mel is as delightful as I had imagined him to be, and even more attractive in person (the kilt helped out making that determination).

I completed three of my five goal-purchases with Mel in my very first booth.

First, I found an alpaca roving and a small amount of alpaca fleece that I think will match the color of the recent bulky alpaca yarn I spun. Hopefully when carded and spun, I will have enough for a cardigan.

On the left of the picture above is the yarn I spun, then the roving that made that yarn. The next two items are the roving and the locks of alpaca I bought from Mel.

Then, I bought a couple of gift items from David’s line of Red Maple products. They are truly sublime, and I may need to keep at least the one pair of socks (the red ones of course.

Finally, I bought a sweater’s worth of the yarn from their Alpaca herd.

I have been doing nothing but dreaming of how best to use this yarn in a new sweater.

After my first shopping binge, I met up with friends Carol and her friend Laura, Marilyn, Fredda, Ted, and Ted’s friend David. Shortly thereafter, we ran into Kathy and Selma. Lars joined us at lunch, and Steve and Sue from Twist came and sat for a moment to say hi. It was a pleasure to see each of them, and honestly, the best part of going to Rhinebeck at all.

I got the chance to also meet Véronik Avery (Carol is right, she is just wonderful), and readers Mindy and one of the Ann’s and her friend (sorry, I forgot your name). It made me remember why I enjoy a certain part of the knitting community very much.

After lunch, Thaddeus helped me pick out my biggest purchase of the day, a Strauch drum carder.

Yes, I decided to go with the brand that most folks recommended to me, and also the best model they have. I am extremely happy with it. I spent a few hours Saturday night carding/blending the alpaca fleece and alpaca roving I bought from Mel’s booth, and this machine is smooth, sturdy and does a spectacular job.

I can’t wait to see what it does with wool.

Speaking of which, my final purchase of the day was a cormo fleece.

I bought this from a small farm from upstate New York, called Blackberry Hills Farm. The woman was quite knowledgeable and helpful and this huge freakin’ fleece was very inexpensive. She had a white cormo fleece, but I preferred the darker color. I get to thank Jam the ram each time I scour, card, spin and knit with this lovely fiber.

Readers’ Comments/Questions
Regarding my list of 100 favorite movies, one of the Ann’s noted, “I found your 100 interesting, and saw a few that I had missed out on seeing. I would go for a few more classics, a few more SciFi”

I tried to pick from a multitude of genres, directors, actors and time periods, but it got extremely difficult to whittle my list down to 100. I have another dozen or so movies that missed the list, but are still among my favorites, and probably dozens more that just didn’t even occur to me.

On the same subject, Karen asks, “Have you seen Nine Queens?”

No, but it’s certainly looks like a movie I’d enjoy adding to my list. I’ll have to check it out, thanks.