Rhinebeck for First Timers: What Nobody Tells You About NY Sheep and Wool
Last October my daughter and I were flat on our backs in the grass at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds. Such a simple thing. Laughing at nothing, naming the clouds as they passed.
A long way from Orlando, Florida. Florida in October is still HOT. It feels like standing in a steam bath, except you’re just outside. You cannot plop down in grass here because it’s wet and sandy, and you’d get up with a gross soggy bottom.
So there we were, lying in dry grass like it was a luxury, because for us it was. Fall colors showing off in the rolling hills behind the barns. My tote already overflowing with yarn, and it was only day one. That’s when I thought, heh, nobody tells you about this part.
Everybody tells you about the yarn. Nobody tells you about the grass.
We’re heading back on our annual trip October 15 to 18, trip number four, and this year I’ll have a plan in my hand. Here’s what I wish I’d known before trip number one.
Rhinebeck in one paragraph
Rhinebeck is the nickname. The real name is the New York State Sheep and Wool Festival, the third weekend of October at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds, about two hours north of the city in the Hudson Valley, right at peak leaf. Something like 30,000 people and 300-plus vendors, sheep barns, a fleece sale, book signings, and thousands of knitters in handmade sweaters walking around like it’s a runway that smells like lanolin. Tickets and the vendor list live at sheepandwool.com. Open the vendor list now. You’ll need it in a minute.
Nobody tells you: you will not see it all
Last year we planned to walk the festival systematically. We visit Disney World more often than I’d like to admit (hello, we live in Orlando), and a systematic walk-through is how you survive the parks. Start at one end, sweep every land, miss nothing.
The problem? I didn’t have a plan. I had a structure. They are not the same thing, and if you’re there for the goods, you need both.
Because the fairgrounds are big. The buildings are packed. The lines for the popular indie dyers form before the gates open and never shrink. Sweep every building and you’ll see nothing well, and you’ll be too wrung out by 2pm to enjoy the one booth you flew up here for.
So this year, structure and a plan. Five booths. Five vendors from that list, on an actual piece of paper, in my actual pocket. Everything else is a surprise. Seven booths, great. Three booths and a nap in the grass, also great.
Nobody tells you: Sunday is not the quiet day
The internet will tell you Saturday is the crush and Sunday is calm. The internet is wrong. We went both days last year and both days were chaos. Saturday chaos with more sweaters, Sunday chaos with slightly less stock.
You might wait twenty minutes to touch a skein either day, and you’ll do it gladly, because the woman behind you in line is wearing something you need to ask about.
So don’t pick a day hoping to dodge the crowd. Pick both if you can, and plan for chaos.
We do the whole thing. Fly into LaGuardia Thursday, rent a car, and I white-knuckle it out of Queens, through the city, and up the Hudson while my daughter picks the music. I grew up in Kansas. I learned to drive in my daddy’s truck in a field. A highway in New York City? HA.
Upstate through Sunday afternoon, then the terrifying drive back, then two days in Manhattan for a show and the Met before we fly home Tuesday. This year we’re planning to see Just in Time, because we are huge Jeremy Jordan fans and he’s playing Bobby Darin, and I dream of an autograph at the stage door. He reminds me so much of an OG Broadway star. Also I am refreshing Ticketmaster nightly praying for a Harry Styles miracle.
Last year we had the time of our lives. This year, same plan. Kansas girls can survive New York highways. I have proof.
Nobody tells you: wear the sweater even when it’s warm
Even at 68 degrees. Especially at 68 degrees.
Rhinebeck is the one place on earth where a hand-knit sweater stops strangers. They ask about the pattern. They tell you about theirs.
Confession. Last year my daughter was supposed to wear the annual Andrea Mowry make. I’d bought the yarn, I’d planned the whole thing. Except she picked a yellow-brown color that I could only see as chicken nuggets, and I’m a vegetarian. I do this thing where every yarn turns into a food while I knit it, and I could not spend forty hours knitting nuggets. So it sat. Unfinished. She wore something store-bought and I wore my guilt.
Since then I’ve made her a sweater out of the La Bien Aimée I bought at the Brooklyn General Store booth that same weekend, so this year she’s covered. I’m knitting the Antipodes in Moonglow’s Palest Peach with a contrast I spun myself, and I have 41 days on the clock. Pray for me.
Wear a tank top under it. Mornings are cold, afternoons are not, and a sweater tied around your waist at 1pm is the festival uniform.
Nobody tells you: the donut line is its own festival
Three Rhinebecks in and I still have not eaten an apple cider donut there. I have seen the line. The line is a landmark. Those people are nuts, in the most loving way, and every year I look at it and think, not today.
So what did we eat? Panera.
I’m not proud of it. We put our food money into the city instead. Joe’s Pizza at midnight in the hotel room, matching pajamas and all. Ralph’s Coffee and breakfast eaten while walking Central Park. Perfect, no notes. But upstate, it was Panera in the car with yarn in our laps.
This year I’m getting in the donut line. Early, before the noon crush, or late, when it thins out. And there will be a granola bar in my tote for the gap between, because that bar is the difference between a good afternoon and a cranky one.
Nobody tells you: the barns are the point
Most people go for the vendor buildings and never make it to the livestock. We spent more time in the barns than in any vendor building. I love sheep. The sound, the smell, the way they look at you like you’re the one who’s weird. All of it. Ahhhhh.
Go to the sheep. Put your hand on one. Walk the fleece competition and look at what a whole year of one animal’s life looks like on a table, before it ever becomes yarn. And remember that wool is a renewable resource. The sheep grows it back. The sheep is fine. The sheep is, honestly, thriving.
You shop differently after. You buy less and you buy better.
Nobody tells you: it’s cold and then it isn’t
Real talk from a woman who owns one coat and left the house in 87 degrees to get on the plane.
Morning is see-your-breath cold. By 1pm you’re peeling layers. Wear shoes that can handle wet grass and gravel, bring a layer you can tie around your waist, and put on sunscreen even though it’s October, because northern sun does not care what month it is.
Then leave an hour to do nothing. In the grass. With your person. Looking at the trees. It’s on nobody’s list and it was the best hour of the whole trip.
This year’s plan
Five booths on paper, not fifty in my head. Both days, and no pretending Sunday will be calm. Cash for the small vendors, a budget written down before I park. The donut line. Finally. One hour, minimum, in the grass. And the big one: actually talking to people.
Last year I bought yarn from strangers. This year I want to leave with friends. The knitting community in Florida is small, and lovely, and small. Rhinebeck is thirty thousand of us in one field. I’m going to the meetups this year. I’m going to say hi to the woman in line with the sweater I need to ask about. I’m going to be a real part of this thing instead of a tourist in it.
The full packing list is coming, tote bag edition, with everything I forgot last year.
Come find me
First Rhinebeck this year? Tell me what you’re most excited about. Been before? Tell me what nobody told you.
And if you see me there, say hi. I’ll be the one in the palest peach sweater, lying in the grass.
Rhinebeck 2026: festival weekend is Saturday October 17 and Sunday October 18, 9am to 4pm, at the Dutchess County Fairgrounds, Rhinebeck NY. Workshops run Thursday and Friday before. Tickets, schedule, and the vendor list at sheepandwool.com.
