Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival 2016

Kylee and I went to the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival a few weekends ago.  We were lucky that even though it had been very rainy leading up to the festival, it wasn't raining the day we went.

We got there pretty early and made a beeline for the fleece sale barn.  I was on a mission to find a fleece with curly locks that I could dye.  I wanted a Bluefaced Leicester fleece, because they typically have nice curly locks.  The sale barn was PACKED, with both people and fleeces.

We managed to find a fleece after looking through several dozen, and then we got in line. There were volunteers taking turns holding a sign up so people could find the end of the line.


We waited....and waited...and waited.  The line was moving fairly slowly, and we ended up waiting for over an hour to pay for the fleece.  We looked at lots of neat knitted items while we waited, because everyone wears their best knitting things to Sheep & Wool.  I saw this really great knitted then fulled (felted) bag.

Waiting-in-line selfie!

After we found a fleece, we started making our rounds.

We went by the Sarafina Fiber Art booth and saw some amazing felted animals.

We saw some alpacas.

Kylee picked out some roving so she can spin some custom yarn.

We took a rest and took a few more selfies. We were feeling pretty punch drunk by then.

On the way home, we stopped at my friend's house to meet her new baby boy.

Here's what we ended up bringing home. We got some roving, a t-shirt for Kylee, a Border Leicester fleece, some washed curls, a pound of wool batting for wet felting (a pound is a good bit), a pound of BFL roving, a pound of Merino roving, and some kettle corn.

Here's a picture of a sample lock from the fleece I bought.  The funniest part? There were fleeces there from flocks from all over the state, and the fleece I bought came from my neighbor's sheep!