Category: Events

Events · Rhinebeck

Rhinebeck 2025 Debrief

Mihir YerandeLeave a comment

This past weekend, I attended the New York Sheep and Wool Festival (also called Rhinebeck, after the town in which it takes place). It was the first time that I had attended Rhinebeck or any yarn/crafting festival, and it was a really fun experience! I wanted to dedicate a post to talking about my experience with it this year.

The Plan

The festival officially takes place over two days: Saturday and Sunday. There are also events that happen on the preceding Thursday and Friday, but those are considered unofficial.

For this visit, I was only planning on attending for one day. Even though I very much enjoy knitting, I wasn’t certain I’d want to spend two full days walking around and shopping 😋, so I planned to only go on Saturday.

I also went with the local knitting group I started, now named the Jersey City Stitch Society, and we arranged to rent a mini-van and drive a group of us there and back. Originally I was planning to drive with some other group members, but the mini-van was a good choice since it was able to fit everyone who was planning to go together into one car.

The festival goes from 9 am to 4 pm, and we knew there would be traffic at the end of the day, so the plan was to show up early and leave early to avoid the traffic exiting the fairgrounds. I had also signed up for a workshop which went from 10 am to 1 pm.

This ended up being my timeline for that Saturday:

  • Meet up with group in Jersey City around 6:30 am
  • Drive to Rhinebeck
  • Arrive around 8:45 am
  • Browse for an hour, before workshop starts
  • Walk to workshop check-in
    • Sign-in for workshop
    • Pick up pre-ordered souvenir pin
  • Attend workshop from 10 am to 1pm
  • Browse and shop for the next hour
  • Meet up with group around 2pm to leave

The event wasn’t prohibitively busy, but there were still more people than I expected 😅

Let’s break down the day’s happenings 😊

Workshop – Estonian Decorative Stitches

The workshop I attended was called “Estonian Decorative Stitches”, taught by Heather Storta.

Initially I was worried about whether I was stepping into something too advanced for me 😅 However, it turned out completely fine! The workshop was very informative and catered to many skill levels. I won’t give any specific details about what was taught, so you’ll have to attend one of Heather’s workshops if you want to learn 😏

Heather also ran it very well! She came prepared with an overhead camera so she could project her work as she did it, and have people copy her in real-time. I asked a bunch of questions too, since I get hung up on particulars.

After the class, I was also able to ask Heather about TKGA certification and chart design software. I may look into getting TKGA certified in the near future 🤔 … we’ll see about that though.

The Haul

I know other people tend to splurge and buy a bunch of yarn at events like this, but that’s just not me 🤷 I’ve never really understood the idea of buying an arbitrary amount of yarn on a whim when you don’t having a particular pattern or project in mind for that yarn. Since I didn’t have any projects in mind, I luckily didn’t end up buying a ton of yarn, or any yarn at all.

Here’s what I did get:

Please note that I am not sponsored by anyone! (But sponsors are welcome to contact me 👍)

Books

This was the main thing that I figured I’d want to buy at the festival. Conveniently, there was a main section where most of the books and authors were all in one place.

I was also really curious if I’d be able to meet the actual authors of the books there, and I did!

They autographed the books I got 😊

Case for Interchangeable Needle Set

This item was one I was really not looking out for at first. But once I passed by their stand and saw the nice cases, I kinda just had to get one 😭. I will probably do a review of this product once I’ve used it for a good enough amount of time. The company that makes them is called Thread & Maple.

I was very impressed with the sellers. They are really organized in terms of their product offerings, which made it a lot easier for me to finally decide to buy from them. I’ve had an interchangeable circular needle set from KnitPicks for a while and just kept it in the plastic sleeve that I had bought it in. When I met the Thread & Maple vendors, however, they asked exactly which set I had (manufacturer and specific product set) and were able to give me a case that would hold exactly that set of needles.

I moved my needles over to the case, and so far, it looks and feels great:

We’ll have to see how well it holds up over time…

I have high hopes for it to last me forever, though 🤞

Animal Displays

One of my regrets for this trip was that I did not get enough time to browse the shows, specifically the animals.

If I had had more time, I definitely would’ve gone to see more of the animal displays.

Here’s some of what I did see:

There were various sheep and goat events throughout the day, but the workshop took up most of my time 😔

Maybe one day I’ll come back with a family and spend the day petting sheep instead!

Final Thoughts

It was absolutely a great idea to make myself come out to the event for the first time and participate in the wider yarn world. I might even look into other similar festivals around the country!

Workshops *definitely* seem like the type of thing I’d want to continue attending at these.

For future festivals, I may plan to stick around for more time to shop and see the shows.

This time, at least, I got a taste of the event’s offerings and will be able to plan better in the future.