05th May 2008
maryland sheep and wool festival
This past Saturday was a day I’ve been looking forward to for quite a while. Katie, Adam, and I went to the MD Sheep & Wool Festival (MDS&W). I know most of the people who read my blog don’t knit and probably think that this event isn’t something to be that excited about, but it definitely is! 
I missed out on it last year when they went for the first time and have since built up quite the desire to go. After watching podcasts and reading up on message boards this week I could barely contain my excitement. I even bought myself a pair of sweet rain boots in case of a wet and muddy weekend after getting sucked into a MDS&W Tips thread. It ended up being a beautiful weekend but I decided to wear my boots proudly anyway. After all, if I didn’t buy them it would’ve rained and everyone wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the lovely weather, right?
The festival is a great opportunity for the farming and fiber arts communities to connect. It caters to spinners, weavers, knitters, and any other art form you can think of that is related to thread/yarn/wool/etc.. The farming community can buy equipment, show and sell their animals, and (my favorite part) sell the fiber produced buy their livestock.
For knitters like me, going to the yarn store is like being a kid in a candy store. The MD Sheep & Wool Festival = a big, big, BIG candy store. Although my brain was overloaded with pretties, I went with a goal in mind to only buy yarn from farms/hand crafters and avoid the highly commercial stuff. There are lots of fantastic local yarn shops that I can go to at any time, but farm fresh yarn isn’t quite as easy to come by.
The whole “sheep to shawl” process really fascinates me. There are competitions where contestants have three hours and are judged on these very skills. It starts with shearing a sheep, preparing its fleece, spinning the fiber, and weaving it into a shawl.
Seeing all the livestock was fun. There are so many varieties of sheep and goats that produce all kinds of fiber. My favorite animal of them all is the alpaca. They are a member of the camelid family and are sort of a small llama that has incredibly soft fiber. Their cute little faces look like Ewoks and I wanted to hug them all day.
I’ve recently started getting really interested in the possibility of spinning my own yarn. Katie and I both decided to research the craft at the festival but swore not to buy anything spinning related. Well, we did our research and learned quite a bit at one of the booths that make hand carved spindles. Then they pointed us to the Interweave Press booth next to them where a nice lady gave us a crash coarse in using a drop spindle. She gave us each a kit with a spindle made out of a CD and a wooden dowel plus some roving (fiber that is ready to spin). That completely screwed up our not-buying-spinning stuff plan… since we had a makeshift working spindle, we wanted some pretty wool to spin with after we ran out of the sample! We were able to find some pretty hand dyed roving at one of the booths and they helped us pick out the best stuff to start with. I still have yet to try the spindle myself but hope I’ll get some time later this week.
I also bought some pretty hand dyed baby alpaca/silk lace weight yarn, a sock yarn dying kit, and some goats milk soap from a local Maryand farm. The soap is surrounded in wool and shrinks as you use it up - brilliant! I also bought a cute little fizzy bath cupcake for my mom from that same place (Mothers Day is next weekend!).
After stuffing our faces and walking around all day we headed home and rested for a few hours. Alas, the night was still young and there was a Ravelry party at the Columbia Sheraton! Ravelry is an amazing social networking site and organizational tool for knitters. You can keep track of your projects, yarn stash, needles, and get ideas/patterns from other people on the site. There are tons of forums from help tips to fun & nerdy groups like the Big Damn Knitters for us Firefly fans. Katie and I went to the party not knowing anybody but with the goal to be social and meet some new knitting friends.
The party was great - everyone got two drink tickets and a raffle ticket all for free. We met a bunch of people from all over the place and everyone was extremely nice. A bunch of companies donated tons of yarn, books, and other fun things for the raffle… there had to be at least 20 prizes. Katie won a kit with some beautiful yarn and a pattern!
After the raffle most of the older ladies went home but there were tons of extra drink tickets leftover that they needed to use up and lots of socializing to be done. We met the founders, staff members, and volunteers that keep Ravelry going and they were all really awesome. Katie and I eventually got the courage to mention our band and told them that we’d love to play one of their future events. They seemed into the idea so hopefully we’ll get the chance to do that down the road.
We went to the party not knowing what to expect, but we figured worst case we would have some drinks and knit. We were pleasantly surprised at how lovely of a time we had and the time just flew by. We had originally planned to leave around 9:30 but we didn’t hit the road until around midnight.
All in all it was a fabulous day and I look forward to next year!
This past Saturday was a day I’ve been looking forward to for quite a while. Katie, Adam, and I went to the MD Sheep & Wool Festival (MDS&W). I know most of the people who read my blog don’t knit and probably think that this event isn’t something to be that excited about, but it definitely is!
I missed out on it last year when they went for the first time and have since built up quite the desire to go. After watching podcasts and reading up on message boards this week I could barely contain my excitement. I even bought myself a pair of sweet rain boots in case of a wet and muddy weekend after getting sucked into a MDS&W Tips thread. It ended up being a beautiful weekend but I decided to wear my boots proudly anyway. After all, if I didn’t buy them it would’ve rained and everyone wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the lovely weather, right?
The festival is a great opportunity for the farming and fiber arts communities to connect. It caters to spinners, weavers, knitters, and any other art form you can think of that is related to thread/yarn/wool/etc.. The farming community can buy equipment, show and sell their animals, and (my favorite part) sell the fiber produced buy their livestock.
For knitters like me, going to the yarn store is like being a kid in a candy store. The MD Sheep & Wool Festival = a big, big, BIG candy store. Although my brain was overloaded with pretties, I went with a goal in mind to only buy yarn from farms/hand crafters and avoid the highly commercial stuff. There are lots of fantastic local yarn shops that I can go to at any time, but farm fresh yarn isn’t quite as easy to come by.
The whole “sheep to shawl” process really fascinates me. There are competitions where contestants have three hours and are judged on these very skills. It starts with shearing a sheep, preparing its fleece, spinning the fiber, and weaving it into a shawl.
Seeing all the livestock was fun. There are so many varieties of sheep and goats that produce all kinds of fiber. My favorite animal of them all is the alpaca. They are a member of the camelid family and are sort of a small llama that has incredibly soft fiber. Their cute little faces look like Ewoks and I wanted to hug them all day.
I’ve recently started getting really interested in the possibility of spinning my own yarn. Katie and I both decided to research the craft at the festival but swore not to buy anything spinning related. Well, we did our research and learned quite a bit at one of the booths that make hand carved spindles. Then they pointed us to the Interweave Press booth next to them where a nice lady gave us a crash coarse in using a drop spindle. She gave us each a kit with a spindle made out of a CD and a wooden dowel plus some roving (fiber that is ready to spin). That completely screwed up our not-buying-spinning stuff plan… since we had a makeshift working spindle, we wanted some pretty wool to spin with after we ran out of the sample! We were able to find some pretty hand dyed roving at one of the booths and they helped us pick out the best stuff to start with. I still have yet to try the spindle myself but hope I’ll get some time later this week.
I also bought some pretty hand dyed baby alpaca/silk lace weight yarn, a sock yarn dying kit, and some goats milk soap from a local Maryand farm. The soap is surrounded in wool and shrinks as you use it up - brilliant! I also bought a cute little fizzy bath cupcake for my mom from that same place (Mothers Day is next weekend!).
After stuffing our faces and walking around all day we headed home and rested for a few hours. Alas, the night was still young and there was a Ravelry party at the Columbia Sheraton! Ravelry is an amazing social networking site and organizational tool for knitters. You can keep track of your projects, yarn stash, needles, and get ideas/patterns from other people on the site. There are tons of forums from help tips to fun & nerdy groups like the Big Damn Knitters for us Firefly fans. Katie and I went to the party not knowing anybody but with the goal to be social and meet some new knitting friends.
The party was great - everyone got two drink tickets and a raffle ticket all for free. We met a bunch of people from all over the place and everyone was extremely nice. A bunch of companies donated tons of yarn, books, and other fun things for the raffle… there had to be at least 20 prizes. Katie won a kit with some beautiful yarn and a pattern!
After the raffle most of the older ladies went home but there were tons of extra drink tickets leftover that they needed to use up and lots of socializing to be done. We met the founders, staff members, and volunteers that keep Ravelry going and they were all really awesome. Katie and I eventually got the courage to mention our band and told them that we’d love to play one of their future events. They seemed into the idea so hopefully we’ll get the chance to do that down the road.
We went to the party not knowing what to expect, but we figured worst case we would have some drinks and knit. We were pleasantly surprised at how lovely of a time we had and the time just flew by. We had originally planned to leave around 9:30 but we didn’t hit the road until around midnight.
All in all it was a fabulous day and I look forward to next year!
Posted in Life, Knitting | No Comments »
