Out Like a Lamb

Knitting addicts should plan now for an event with more yarn and supplies than all the burgeoning knitting boutiques around town combined. At the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, there are easily miles of stands selling yarn and its incarnations between the sheep and your sweater. Some hard-core crafty types buy wool in these intermediary stages so they can be organic or practice crafts like people in pre-industrial ages did, and you can see experts demonstrating all of these steps. For example, you could buy wool straight off the sheep, after it's washed, after it's carded to make the fibers lie straight, or after it's been twisted and drawn out. That last type is called roving, good for making felted gear. Using a spinning wheel turns roving into yarn, and there are so many varieties your head will be spinning, too. Case in point: Last year, I picked up a pleasing grapefruit-sized ball, only to have my sister point out the price tag was over $100. It's easy to get overwhelmed, because this festival celebrates everything sheep have to offer. (Vegetarians, I mean everything. Ew.) On the bright side, there are sheep to pet, a border collie demonstration, sheep stuffed animals, sheep photographs ... too many sheep to count.

-- Anne

By washingtonpost.com |  March 30, 2005; 6:03 PM ET Misc.
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Posted by: Michelle in MD | March 31, 2005 8:58 AM

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