Saturday – 2008 Maryland Sheep and Wool

Now comes the good stuff….

Deborah and I left her house at around 11:00 a.m. to make the 15 minute drive to the Howard County Fairgrounds. We finally got parked at around 1:30 p.m. Take a look at the parking field. UNBELIEVABLE!

We had already planned that our first stop would be the Skein and Garment competition to see how the judging went. We made the long trek through the cars feeling sorry for the river of cars still waiting to be parked. The items in the competition were scattered on different tables so it was difficult to find them all, but eventually we did and this is what we saw…

All of the items we entered won prizes. Starting on the left Merlin the bunny won second place in the small sculptural or figurative felted items. The Pussy Willow Bunny won first place in medium and has already sold on ebay. The Panda took second place in the small category and is currently listed on ebay with a bid. The frog, Phineas, took first place in the small category and a Special Award for Best Sculptural or Figurative item. Deborah has perfected a new technique call “Cloisonne Felting”. These four items were entered in the Skein and Garment competition.

Deborah entered the ram in the Fine Arts Competition. All items must be sheep related and compete against all mediums in the Sculpture Category. Ramzee took fourth place. What an accomplishment. This was our first competition and we couldn’t be more pleased. What an honor to place against so many talented fiber artists.

After calling our husbands to tell them the good news we continued on to the packed buildings. The first two buildings were full of beautiful sheep. If you’ve never seen a Karakul… now you have. They have long straight wool which is traditionally used for rug making. We could immediately see putting it to use on projects that are floating around in our heads. Oh the possibilities! Later in the day, in the main exhibition hall we look at the fleece show and sale just out of curiosity. There was a Karakul fleece on the table that looked just like our sheep friend so we snapped it up right away and tool it to the Fingerlakes Woolen Mill stand to send if off for scouring. We’ve always ordered our wool on the net so being able to pick the exact fleece we liked was a real treat.

Our purchases continued at Delly’s Delights Farm. I scored a great bag of Border Leicester natural, washed locks. There booth was fabulous and a felter’s dream.

This is just the tip of the iceburg. I’ll show you lots more including the rest of our stash and lots of great animals.

~ by flightsofwhimzy on May 12, 2008.