Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival From the Vendor Side

What a busy and cold, wet spring!  The weather has hampered everything from cleaning the barn to doing field work.  Andy and I have been doing a lot of shop work, turning wool and wood into spinning fiber and tools.  We have a full spring festival season mapped out and need to build inventory so the shelves stay full.

The biggest festival of the season is the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, and Nistock Farms was a vendor there for the first time.  We were accepted into a tent space in the upper gravel lot, but being in a tent gave me pause as I know how wet it can be there.  Setting up on gravel felt as safe as possible though, so off we went with great optimism the first weekend in May!

Julie and I drove on Thursday so that we'd have all day Friday to set up.  New space, new dimensions, uneven floor.... we knew it would take a while.  Here was our home for the next two days.

I was alarmed at the lack of sidewalls, especially since it was raining and foggy, but was assured that the tent company would be back at some point during the day to put them up (and they were) so we forged ahead with unloading.

"Trailer full of heavy stuff?  Sure, no problem!"

Our tent walls were clear, thankfully, and despite not having electricity it was quite bright inside, even on Sunday which was raining and dreary.  With the tent wall pulled up to function as a door we looked inviting with sort of a bedouin flavor.  ;-) 

We are a fiber provider of Cotswold for the Livestock Conservancy's 'Shave 'Em to Save 'Em' program which works to connect fiber artists with the producers of rare sheep breeds' fleece.  We had raw Cotswold available by the pound, prepared roving and Cotswold yarn so we had all angles covered and sent a lot of folks home with wool from a breed they had never sampled.  Awesome program, Livestock Conservancy!

One happy shopped discovered that we had the same taste in colors - I had created roving that matched both her blouse and her shoes!

We made one purchase prior to the festival season and ordered the grid panels and hardware to construct a free standing "H" shaped display.  Andy had cut some nice shelves and it functioned well for small, lightweight items. 

The far wall displayed yarn and our Cotswold blankets and then there were two tables and upright grid wall for Andy's fiber tools.  I spent a fair amount of time demonstrating Oxford rug punching and punch needle embroidery, both of which are easy to do and the Oxford rug punching has the added allure of being able to eat up handspun yarn - a plus for spinners like myself who have totes full of yarn with no specific purpose.

All in all, the tent space worked out well and I've already signed up for next year.  The major downside of being a vendor is that it's tough to get out of your booth and see the festival!  Spinning guild friends stopped by to say hello (don't know where the group hug picture went, darn it) and my only trip to the sheep barn was on a mission to steal some electricity for my phone.  Not ever having dealt with a non-electric booth I didn't think about phone battery life - and one needs it to process credit cards.  Yikes!  Thankfully I was able to park my phone in the sheep show office and bring it back to life.  First purchase upon returning home - a battery pack with USB ports for just such situations.  Apparently the world has been using these for some time and once again I'm firmly behind the technology wave.  :-/

I was really sad that I didn't get a chance to peruse the display of fleece types.  Apparently there was an extensive collection of breed samples including the rare and foreign and I should have found time to see it.  I hope it might come back another year.  One event that I did manage to get to was the Skein and Garment display and that was because the festival committee members were generous enough to keep the building open for one hour after the festival closed so that vendors could enjoy it.

As usual, the talent and artistry was astonishing.  Every entry deserved a photo but I grabbed a few of the items that most caught my eye.

Knitting...

Photography and graphic arts.....

Thecrazysheeplady's wool house image earned a blue!  :-)

Amazingly realistic felting.....

Items that are both artistic and functional......

I don't remember if this was hooked or punched but the design is the artist's original.

And my favorite entry.....

The Travelling Fleece.  A 'handspinner's basket' entry featuring wool spun from Buddy, a sheep from our flock who moved to Equinox Farm at a tender age and lived a long happy life there.  Buddy's sire was British (thank you, artificial insemination technology) so England, New York (our farm), Kentucky (his lifelong home) and Pennsylvania (where the spinner worked her magic on the fleece) are all involved, hence the 'passport'.  How clever is that?? Far beyond what I could have come up with and very worthy of the blue and purple ribbons adorning it.

Having been initiated to the rhythm of being a vendor at such a big show I will be better able next year to plan some time to get out and see more of the events, even if it has to be 'after hours'.  That's one of the fun things about such events - the sheep barns never really close!

January Doldrums

Winter makes me lose any blogging mojo I have.  Things are mostly gray and cold, days are short, chores are very routine and work in the wool shop slows due to holidays, year end book work and trying to catch up on neglected indoor tasks.  You can only say 'fed the sheep and skirted a fleece' so many ways.  ;-)

I tend to feel like Dexter - brace against something and sleep till spring.

But we do accomplish things every day even if it feels like we're just treading water. Here are a few occasions noteworthy enough that I took pictures.

I finished two scarves for Christmas presents.  As both have finally been presented as gifts I can show them. Both came to me as fiber during the guild's Christmas exchange (different years and they have been in the stash) and both have Blue Faced Leicester as a major component although they are from different producers. The fiber was nice to spin and the projects were simple and quick.  I used a simple pull-through pattern I grabbed off Ravelry - the Noro Keyhole Scarf.

We had a belated but fun Christmas dinner at Julie and Red's and Holly never wants to go home.  She has two perfectly good beds at home she rarely sleeps on and stuffed toys that she walks over and here she looks like the poor rescue dog finding warmth and safety for the first time in her life.  I guess most kids think their friends have cooler parents and better stuff.

The sheep welcomed some short but sunny days and napped in the barn doorway after filling up at the hay feeders.

And we were finally able to get every sheep into a jacket.  We ended up buying from both Rocky Sheep Company and The Wool Tinker.  Both brands are of good quality and the sizes alternate, with Rocky Sheep running odd sizes (37, 39, 41, etc. inches) and Wool Tinker being even (38, 40, 42, etc.).  Between the two everyone has a coat that fits... at least for a few weeks.  We'll have to change up many of them between now and shearing.  Buying the extra coats was a considerable investment but being able to market all the fleeces as coated will be worth it and save me time in the long run during skirting.

And what's better during the cold, dull winter but a little more cat sniffing?


Holly sez....

"I've sniffed enough cats today.  I'd rather go chase that squirrel.....except he 's way over there through the deep snow.....but if he comes over here he's dead!"

Yarn Along - A Finished Object!

Last weekend I went stash diving and started dating some lovely dyed roving of unknown fiber. At the rate I spin we'll be going steady for some time.  It was from the Christmas Exchange at our spinning guild last December and all I remember is that it's wool and I'm going to guess it's Blue Faced Leicester or a similar flavor.  It's not merino or a blend of materials, but I really don't know the pedigree.

There were two braids in the gift bag.  This is from the brighter, more shades-of-blue braid.  The other is a bit darker blue with more purple and smokey gray tones.  I'm sure it will be fun to spin too......someday.

The more notable accomplishment - for me - is a fully finished object!  Here is my version of Leftie which incorporates some of the special colorways dyed by Amy the Fiber Goddess of Stone Edge Fibers in honor of the guild's 30th anniversary.  Last year our handspun mini skeins were displayed during the Finger Lakes Fiber Festival.  This year the task challenge was to use those skeins in an item of some kind.  I thought Leftie would show the colors nicely.  The white(ish) main color starts out as handspun Cotswold/silk at the small end and I quickly (but not quick enough!!) realized there wouldn't be enough of it and I started adding in rows of our millspun white Cotswold till it morphs over to all millspun at the wide end.

The leaves were fun to make and like potato chips I found myself wanting to make just. one. more.

While working in the wool shop I've recently listened to Anne of Green Gables (would you believe I had somehow never found it as a kid?  Probably because it didn't have a horse on the cover.) and was then stymied because the library doesn't have any of the other books in that series on audio!  Drat, that's the third time that's happened lately.  So, thwarted in finding out how things go for Anne I browsed the library and wheeled around in a literary 180 degree turn to listen to The Bone Garden.  A good story with interesting parallel mysteries set centuries apart but with the same truth being discovered at the end of both timelines.  

Joining in with Ginny.....

Yarn Along - This Is Actually Fun!

The Finger Lakes Fiber Festival is sponsored by the Genesee Valley Handspinners Guild.  Last year was the guild's 30th anniversary and to commemorate the occasion Amy the Fiber Goddess dyed BFL roving in three distinct multi-color colorways and all who wanted to participate received two ounces to spin any way they wished.  The small skeins were then displayed in the guild's booth at the festival last year.

This year's guild display is to be items made from those small skeins.  Can be anything and can include other yarn.  I spun my original two ounces a little soft and chunky so there really wasn't much yardage to work with.  Amy had some roving left so I grabbed another bag of the color I had last year (which turned out to be slightly different shades from the first roving but that's OK, it's all pretty) and even a bit more of a second colorway from a friend who didn't need all hers.

I had settled on a pattern some time ago and printed it out before I went to Kentucky to visit The Crazy Sheeplady.  I knew I'd need help making sure I understood what was written, and during the Summer Swap gathering an excellent knitter helped me figure it out.  (Thanks, kbdoolin!)

I'm liking it so much I want to go sit in random waiting rooms so I can knit and have people notice it!  ;-)

I love that there's no set stopping point - when you're out of yarn, you're done!

I've listened to a few audio books lately while driving and working.  I really liked two of them although they are world's apart in plot and style.  Across Five Aprils has apparently been around as long as I have ( ! ) but I hadn't stumbled over it.  I'm pleased to think there are tons of good 'old' books out there waiting for me to discover them.  The other one is much newer - Station Eleven - and is quite popular judging by the people in line ahead of me waiting to download it from the library so in this one tiny event I'm current with pop culture.

Joining in with Ginny....

From Then Till Now

Poor neglected blog. No entries since coming home from Maryland.   Let's catch you up.

We've had lots of weather.  Rain......

and worse than rain - snow.

"Maybe there's a slow, cold mouse in the grass over there....."

"Less picture, more indoors, please."

We started letting the sheep out on grass, beginning in the Baby Pasture as usual.  Just a short time each day so they don't overdo on the rich stuff but they will get accustomed to it again in a couple of weeks.   The pasture is slow because of the cold but maybe that's good - maybe they'll be able to keep up with it better when they get out on the bigger areas.

The old girls made it to grass!  Alfalfa pellets and beet pulp pellets made a big difference for those with crummy (or non-existent) teeth.  The lucky dozen - Alexandria, Bug, Bunny, Drambui, Pickles, Kahlua, Nibbles, Gilly, Ruby, Dollar, Fiesta and India.  Some are still gaunt but not deathly so and they are old....    Bunny and Drambui are the oldest at 13 each.  Four more are 12, and a couple each at 11, 10 and so on.  

The Shepherd's Market was a good day.  People shopping and also just taking the opportunity to sit and chat and do fiber things in the central gathering area.

My space consisted of 2 big round tables (a bit odd to set up with round ones, but we made it work.)...

And a smaller table in a corner.  Andy built a nice book stand for the booth.  We're starting to carry a small collection of books and DVDs that pertain specifically to spinning, knitting, and weaving - mostly basic materials that will compliment our fiber and yarn and be excellent resources for newcomers to the fiber world.

I've been working in the wool shop getting reserved fleeces skirted and also filling online orders and trying to keep dyeing to have more roving processed.  Kittin has been a big help.  At least she thinks so.

The deadline (it's a flexible deadline but I made it a firm one in my head) for handing in the guild KAL project was Saturday so I had to  found time to finish knitting the shawl.  I played yarn chicken twice, once on the border with two colors .....

And then on the bind off.  That little ball is all I had left and there was nothing else in the stash that was even close.  Whew.

 

And then it got a bath and was blocked and had a fan on it all night to get dry.  Nothing like waiting till the last minute.  It's bigger than I thought it was.  It got kind of hard to tell what was going on because of being all scrunched up on the cable.  Gee, I bet a better knitter would have figured out that that might mean something. Sigh  :-/

Spring seems to have come this week and I think it's going to stick this time.

The main flock has moved to the big pasture by the road and is enjoying fresh spring grass as only sheep can.  It's kind of quiet without lambs in the pasture, but boy - there's a lot of sheep out there.  :-0

OK, back to work!

Through The Looking Glass

Going to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival is like going to another world - a magical place made especially for addicts enthusiasts of all things sheep and fiber related.  It's fun for muggles non-fiber people, too, since the whole thing is a carnival of color, creativity and sheep.  Nobody gets bored at Maryland!

Friday it absolutely poured rain so set up was miserable for vendors. Thankfully, Saturday was dry (although it stayed gray all day) and the crowds were thick. (Biggify to get a sense of the density of people. Attendance is usually 50K.)  Notice the lady at lower right.  Yes, her hair is green. Yes, it's supposed to be green.  A lot of fiber folk are inclined to dye their hair for these types of events.  Red, blue, green, yellow, orange, purple - it was all there.  Maybe someday I'll dare.....

I was tickled to see that two of our fleeces placed in the show!  Cotswold 'Nancy' took second in her breed class and gray Cotswold 'Irene' earned an Honorable Mention in the Colored Long Wool class (essentially 5th place) competing against some very popular breeds. Woot!  Overall, between the show and sale-only fleeces there were nearly 1200 entries.

After checking the fleece show results the next stop was the Skein and Garment competition.  I'm always blown away by the creativity and technical expertise of the entrants.  Tables and tables and shelves and racks and displays - all covered in amazing fiber art.

Hooked rugs (this one was done with yarn, not wool fabric strips).....

Drawing (check the hand mirror - how sweet is that?!?)

Photography........

Needle felting (yes, that's wool, not paint)........

Knitting (and more needle felting)..........

And of course, spinning...........

The sheep shows started at 8:30 AM both days and ran till the very end.  There were two judges working adjacent rings and they were both just what one would hope for in a judge - thorough, careful and clearly knowledgeable.  When judging livestock, animals are usually judged from the bottom up, meaning that the judge will dismiss to the rail animals that aren't in the running for the top spots.  I was very impressed to see the judges pause all handlers as they were dismissed and have a word or two with them.  This is huge for the animals' owner - if you don't know why the judge dismissed you then you have no insight about what to work on in your breeding program.  All too often classes are decided and the judge tells the reasoning for placing the top three and no word is made of the others.  The judges took an extra amount of time with young exhibitors and I like to think the comments were encouraging - "Your lamb is fitted well and is built nicely but in this class she's just so much younger than the others that she doesn't compete well and that's the reason she's at the bottom this time.  It's not because she's a poor animal." Or words to that effect.  When you see an eight year old pulled out first and she ends up smiling after the judge speaks to her you know something positive was said.

As one class was finishing up the producers would bring the sheep for the next class and pen them around the perimeter so they'd be handy.

It was fairly bright out when this white class was being judged and the light was good.

By the time some of the colored classes were happening it was clouding up and getting late in the day - not optimal for comparing black fleeces on animals.  No problem - the judge directed the class out of the arena and into the natural light.

"Colored sheep" covers a lot of territory.  Basically it's any color other than solid white.  Black, brown, gray, harlequin - they were all there, and beautiful!

I can't even guess how to describe this one.  Spotted merle?  Spots on ticking?  Solid over mottled coloring? Appaloosa??

The barns are open to the public and people were milling through the aisles looking at different breeds, talking with shepherds about their animals and getting up close and personal with the sheep themselves.  A lot of people had never been closer to a sheep than the chocolate lamb in their Easter baskets.

This boy was delighting in giving an appreciative Cotswold a good back scritching.

This colored  Blue Faced Leicester was willing to share a blueberry muffin.  (He didn't really eat it - the man holding it out knew better than to really feed someone's animal anything.  He just used it to get the sheep's attention.)

There is a whole barn devoted to breed association displays.  Just about every sheep breed you can think of brings literature, props and a representative sheep or two for display to the public.  It's a great way to learn about different breeds and what their principal uses are.  This big ram is a Montadale.  As luck would have it, our spinning guild is doing a sheep breeds study (sampling the fleece of many different breeds) and Montadale was on the list.  Thanks to Emma's Daisyhill Farm we now have his fleece to work with! 

He was a very mellow, friendly ram and after representing his kind in the display all weekend and the Parade of Breeds on Sunday he was whisked down to the shearing area.  A lot of show sheep were shorn after their classes were over so there was a steady stream of animals needing shearing which also provided a steady demonstration of that skill for all who wanted to watch.

This is Emily Chamelin, a professional sheep shearer.  She's amazing to watch - can shear with either electric or hand shears - and had this big ram neatly parted from his fleece in just a couple of minutes.  So adept is she at handling the sheep that this big ram never struggled a bit as she clipped him.  (She's still in costume from shearing for a Sheep to Shawl team earlier that day.  Argyle isn't the usual dress code.)  FYI, the other shearer on stage is a lady, too.  No gender bias on a farm when work needs to be done!

And after a long day of fun at the festival everybody gets to eat a good supper....

....put on your jammies and relax for the evening.

Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival - there's no event quite like it!