On Saturday I attended the annual Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival (MDSW) for the first time. What a great day! This is one of the largest fiber festivals in the country–I’ve heard estimates of 50,000-100,000 attendees per year. It’s a celebration of all things fiber–from the sheep, rabbits, and goats to the finished products–yarn and knitted/felted/woven fabrics. There is an animal component with exhibitions and judging, and a market component where one can buy fleece, roving, yarn, spinning wheels, and any knitting/spinning/weaving tool or accessory you can think of. There are also other vendors selling hand crafted baskets, furniture, jewelry, and the like. Add in musicians and fair food and you have the makings of a great festival.
Having heard the stories of the crowds and traffic backups on Saturday (the festival runs all weekend), I decided to head out early for the just-over an hour drive from Northern Virginia to the Howard (MD) County fairgrounds. My strategy worked well. I breezed right in ahead of the crowds, got a great parking space near the entrance, and headed onto the grounds. Even though I arrived about an hour before the official start time, there were people there even earlier, and there were already substantial lines of people waiting outside two very popular booths–the festival souvenirs, and The Fold, vendor for the currently-hot item “Socks That Rock” sock yarn.
I wandered a bit and then met up with some friends who arrived a couple hours later. We went to the Ravelry meetup, then spent the rest of the day shopping, eating, and sitting on blankets knitting. I left the festival 10 hours after I arrived, sunburned, dead tired, and very happy.
My “loot” from MDSW: yarn for four pairs of socks and a shawl, a felted iPod case, and a hand-woven white pine basket that was made as I watched.
Lessons learned:
–The hype about things selling out is overstated. To listen to people talk beforehand, you’d think that the stock of certain popular booths would be ravaged within minutes of the festival opening. There was still plenty of yarn and other goodies left by the end of the day.
–People talked about how crowded it is on Saturday and not to go until Sunday if you dislike crowds. Yes, there were a lot of people there, but it wasn’t uncomfortably crowded. Maybe I’m desensitized from living in DC and commuting on the overcrowded Metro trains every day?
–Having been there once, next year I’m going to plan my time so that I see more of the animal side of the festival. I spent most of the day browsing the booths and knitting on the lawn. No regrets about that, but next year I would like to see the sheep dog demonstration, maybe a shearing, and wander through the barns to see more of the animals.
–Cell phones are a godsend at events like this. Made it so much easier for our group to coordinate and find each other when we wanted to go separate ways and then regroup.
–Reapply sunscreen liberally. With my fair Anglo skin I’m usually over-vigilent about sunscreen, but I still managed to get burned on one side of my neck and shoulders.
–There was more of a cross-section of people than I was expecting: male, female, old, young, singles and families.
I’m eager to start knitting up the yarn I bought, but I’m trying to finish at least a few of the projects that I already have in the works before casting on more. Stay tuned for updates.
