Last Saturday, my sister and I, along with my boys, traveled to the Howard County Fairgrounds in West Friendship, Maryland, to attend the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival. To say it was crowded was an understatement! There were so many people there, you couldn’t walk anywhere without bumping into someone. The vendors’ tents were so overcrowded, we bypassed most of them without giving them a second thought. However, I got close enough to one tent and saw a couple of beautiful Clapotis wraps on display! As I mentioned in the previous post, I keep envisioning this pattern in silk, but it was very good to see it in person, made using worsted weight yarns which weren’t silk, and they were wonderful.
Lunchtime came, and the 45-minute wait to get my boys their lunch was almost too much! And then we had to sit on the lumpy, grassy ground between two of the sheep barns for them to eat. That was most uncomfortable, but with all those people, what can you expect? My sister and I skipped lunch because the food tents were selling lamb kabobs, open pit lamb, lamb everything, and we basically lost our appetites.
After lunch, we walked through the sheep barns to look at all the different types of sheep, I took a ton of sheep shots, and then we walked around the sheep show. Some of those sheep were so funny! My teen got into a “blahhhhh-ing” war (yes, blahhh-ing, not baa-ing) with one who was getting ready to go into the show ring. Everytime the sheep would “BLAHHH”, he’d stick his tongue out and let it hang loose for a few seconds, then my son would return the gesture, and that promptly put us all into hysterics. (That’s him in that image on the left.) Too bad I didn’t have my video camera. If I go next year, I’ll be sure to take it along.
We saw a woman sitting outside one of the vendor tents spinning some fluffy fiber that was on her lap, 
so I snapped a shot and realized there were ears sticking up out of the fluff! Then she picked up the fluff and turned him around and said, “Would you like to get a shot with his face?” Awwww…. so CUTE! He was an adorable Angora rabbit, and I wanted to alternately take pictures of him and save him at the same time because he was being plucked and spun right before my very eyes! Poor thing! But the spinner must’ve known what I was thinking because she said these rabbits are used to it because they go through this all the time. And as she said it, the rabbit started to struggle and looked like he’d rather be anywhere else.
We only saw a couple of alpacas, a couple of llamas, some different breeds of Angora rabbits, some goats, and more sheep than I’ll probably ever see in one place at one time in my whole life! They were all very interesting, especially the spotted sheep, the sheep with four horns, and the naked sheep. Ever seen a naked sheep? No? Well, look left… there’s a bunch of naked sheep, and they look a little chilly!
With all the people and the difficulty getting into the vendors’ tents to look at their items for sale, I thought I might go home empty-handed. But I fought my way through to purchase this 500-yard hank of beautifully-dyed yarn from the vendor, Mohair in Motion from Michigan. Whatever it was, I had to have it! It just figures that I’d go to a sheep and wool festival and come home with 100% rayon! Now what am I going to make with it? (If you have any ideas or patterns you’d like to share, please leave a comment for me!) There were a few more hanks of yarn I really wanted, but those vendors couldn’t accept credit cards and so they didn’t make a sale from me. And that’s a good thing in a way, because I do believe I have enough yarn in my stash as it is!
I also picked up something for my Secret Pal 10 spoilee, but I can’t tell you what it is because it would spoil the surprise! The event was all that it was supposed to be; a festival celebrating sheep and wool and everything you can do with sheep and wool.
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