Friday, May 13, 2011

How I spent my Mother's Day

Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival

Actually, I spent a good bit of the whole weekend here--9 hours over 2 days. The weather was absolutely perfect, and I had such a great time! Sheep judging, sheepdog demonstrations, great lamb to eat, and HUNDREDS of vendors selling everything a fiber lover could possibly want!

So what was there to see? There were sheep:

Guess what, more sheep

And more sheep:

Yep, they are still sheep

And more sheep!

And more

Somehow I got an awful lot of pictures of sheep behinds. They also have some very cute fronts of course:

Sheep

Awwwww! And there were alpacas too! I love alpacas.

It's an alpaca!
Another alpaca
And even more alpacas!

And there were so many beautiful things to look at. Some were on display by vendors:

Love this green crocheted wrap

Map sweater

Some were entered in a judged competition. These next two pictures are felted--they look like watercolor paintings!

Flat felting
Another gorgeous felted picture


And other things were being worn by their creators!

Cute crochet hats!

On Sunday I watched the Sheep to Shawl competition--amazing! Each competing team has 5 members--a shearer, three spinners, and a weaver. And they have 4 hours to shear a sheep, comb and spin the fleece into yarn, and weave it into a shawl! Each team comes with their loom already warped (all strung with the threads needed to make the shawl), then as the spinners get yarn made, the weaver creates the shawl. It was so cool to watch.

Combing out fleece:

Combing wool

Three spinners and a weaver in action:

The whole Peddlar team

There was a junior team too:

The whole junior team in action

Their finished shawl:

The junior team's shawl

The 2nd place winner--isn't this gorgeous?

This shawl came in second place

And the winning shawl on the right:

So lovely, and all in under 4 hours

I have more photos up on my Flickr page if you'd like to see them. I had an absolutely MARVELOUS time, and I can't wait till next year!

3 comments:

paula said...

Now THIS sounds like it was too much fun ! ! ! ! !

Shanti said...

Hi Julie!!! it sounds like a wonderful time you had!!! it sure had been fun and interesting to be there... thank you for sharing!!!
Happy belayed mothers day!

Kimberly and Abby said...

What fun! Maybe I'll get to go to an event like that someday.