Skip to main content

Shepherd's Harvest at Twenty Years Old

On Saturday I ventured to Stillwater's Washington County Fairgrounds to take in Shepherd's Harvest, a sheep and wool festival being held for its 20th year.  Last year Mom, Susan and I investigated this event on a windy and thus really chilly mid-May day.  This year I was alone with Mom celebrating a graduation and Susan in Paris.

Photo credit to Shepherd's Harvest FB page
The weather on Saturday was warm, like 80 F/23 C degrees warm.  The venue is about a 30 minute drive east from my condo downtown Minneapolis making it located very close to Wisconsin; thus the vendors come from both Minnesota and Wisconsin.  The variety of vendors include those who spin and dye yarn, those who hand paint or hand dye roving, basket and yarn bowl makers, those selling spinning and weaving tools, many of local yarn shops and all the other types of accessories needed to do yarn crafting.  The vendors fill three large fairground buildings.

Last year the weather kept us from spending any time with the llamas and alpacas or taking in the shearing demonstrations.  Llama and alpaca are both South American Camelids.  Both produce a fiber that is used to make yarn, but there a several differences.  Llama have the longer curved ears and grow to be much bigger than alpaca.  Llama tend to be used as guard or pack animals.  Alpaca are much more social animal and create a more refined fiber. Alpacas have more rounded ears and face when compared to a llama. If you want to read more about their differences check out this grower's website.

I found both species in the barn friendly and curious.  Here's a bunch of photos I took.

Here a llama is being sheared

This llama posed for me

My Holstein coloured llama 

Added this llama to show the variety of their colour
Oh, sure yarn was purchased, despite my efforts at restraint.  A single skein of Nako lace weight, 550 m/600 yards of yarn from Turkey found its way home with me. The colourway is #412 and includes dark blue, dark teal, cooper and rust, a beautiful combination of colours that look good on me.  It contains 10% alpaca and 10% wool, with the remainder in acrylic; it is so very soft I will forgive it for its lack of a pedigree and celebrate its affordability.

Photo credit - Webs
It came with an easy Feather and Fan shawl pattern and I am knitting it on rather large 10.5/6.5 mm sized needles.  Since this shawl has only just been started, I will hold off photos until more of the loveliness of the yarn is visible.

As for the day, it was a satisfying adventure visiting Shepherd's Harvest again this year. Perhaps next year I will see if I can find someone to join me; it is much more fun to enjoy these types of events with others.












Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anatomy of a Sock

I've been knitting socks for a relatively short time.  One of the disconcerting things for me as I started following patterns for socks is the pattern designer assumes the knitter (in this case that would be me) knows all the parts of a sock.  So I thought I'd devote a post to improve my own knowledge about the anatomy of a sock and maybe some of you will learn something about the humble yet necessary sock as well. Here's the names of the parts of the foot as I know them. #49 ankle, #50 heel, #51, instep, #52 ball, #53 big toe, #54 toe, #55 little toe, #56 toenail. There are some parts more important for this discussion; first the heel of a foot is generally used to refer to the entire C-shape from the ankle to the instep.  Speaking of the instep, it refers to that curve near the bottom of the foot.  And what seems to be missing in the design above is the sole which generally refers to the bottom of the foot in total or plantar aspect in more technical terms...
2 comments
Read more

Ode to the Cat

It has been six months since Mike, the cat's, passing.  I think of him every day and miss him especially when Paul is away.  Mike was a being in the house with me and we were close.  Grieving his death has been muddled with my Dad's passing and sometimes I feel guilty about that happening.  As time passes the ache becomes less hurtful for both and I am starting to get mostly good memories in its place. Recently I helped celebrate Pablo Neruda's birthday with Jami, my poet and overall very creative friend.  Guests were asked to select one poem written by Neruda to read to the small group who gathered for the celebration.  I picked this one: Ode To The Cat -- Pablo Neruda There was something wrong with the animals: their tails were too long, and they had unfortunate heads. Then they started coming together, little by little fitting together to make a landscape, developing birthmarks, grace, flight. But the cat, only the cat turned ou...
1 comment
Read more

Knitting-Related Guinness World Records

I had to share some of the Guinness World Records connected with knitting.  It is amazing to me the type of skill, stamina and unique characteristics these record holders have in common. How about trying to knit with these SPNs?? Ingrid Wagner and her large needles and knitted swatch The largest knitting needles measured 3.5 m (11 ft 5.8 in) long and had a diameter of 8 cm (3.15 in). Ingrid Wagner, a rug and art creation artist, from the UK used the needles to knit a tension square of ten stitches by ten rows at the Metro Radio Arena, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, on March, 10 2008.  (And I complained about getting certain SPNs stuck in my clothes.)  See how this swatch was done with merely 5 people managing the needles.  And what about the yarn?  It is truly ex-bulky.  It looks like they're knitting in a warehouse, but with a wingspan of almost 24 feet or 7 m, you'd need all that space.  Or h...
1 comment
Read more