Wrap-Up: Maryland Alpaca and Fleece Festival
This past Saturday I helped Melissa from Wild Hare Fiber with her booth at the Maryland Alpaca and Fleece Festival. Melissa has a wonderful sense of color and is a multi-talented fiber artist. I had a few items for sale as her “guest artist” which was the cute moniker she gave me that day. It was really cold in the barn, but we stuck it out and had a good time talking with customers and chatting about our various art and craft interests. I was pleased to discover that I’m not the only one with a stack of fabric, paints, canvases, and other art supplies that I bought on sale but I’ve yet to crack open.
222 Handspun
222 Handspun
Wild Hare Fiber
We were only there for Saturday and I was short on time, but I managed to say hi to some fiber friends in the other barns and I bought some alpaca fleece from the same vendor as last year - Alpaca Road. I’ll mainly card it into art batts and blend it with other fibers. I also bought a bag of “Salk” blended vegan top from the Fiberists for something fun to spin while I was at the show. The vendor across from us, Rebecca from Greenbridge Pottery, gave me a lovely heart pocket token at the end of the day. Ceramics is another interest of mine. One of these days I will have time to work with clay.
Luckily I had a few minutes to see the alpacas in the barns outside. One of the cool things about this event is that the 4H kids get to show their alpacas. Later that afternoon, a couple girls visited our booth wearing show ring numbers and one immediately asked me if my photo of a sheep on my sign was a Cotswold. Indeed I think it was. I was pretty impressed with her good eye and she told me she shows Cotswolds and alpacas for 4H. I mentioned that I took that photo many years ago at Stonehenge and she exclaimed, “I think it must be a Cotswold then”! And as it also turns out, she does 4H at a Northern Virginia Farm where I have visited before. Small world!
Sorry I didn’t take more photos at the festival, but at least I got a few. Until next year…