Lambtown U.S.A.

I spent Saturday at  Lambtown USA, in Dixon, California. Here’s the story in pictures. Lambtown isn’t just a fiber festival – it’s a celebration of sheep and lamb and all their gifts to us. Sheep are shown and judged,

Shetland ram

  

shorn,

shearing contest

and even ridden:

looking for a customer

 

Lamb is cooked

and eaten, with gusto, by both fair attendees and competitive types:

eating contest

  

Last year there were sheepdog trials too, but this year they were unaccountably missing. The fair is pretty fiber-centric, really. There’s fleece judging, and a competition for handspun yarns and garments made from handspun:

fleece judging in progress

I visited with friends while watching the judging – Sarah got some spinning time in and showed us how easily the perfect center-pull ball comes off her adorable Turkish spindle:

Somehow I neglected to take pictures of the rest of the crew of friends I spent the day with – so sorry, folks!

I enjoy the sheep-to-shawl competition. It’s a team event – each team receives a big bag of washed, dyed fleece, and the object is to card it, spin it, and weave it into a shawl by the end of the day. The best shawl wins – and size matters too:

The market  was heavy on spinning fiber and fleece – with mostly smaller vendors, including several with no or minimal Web presence who had wonderful wares, like Gone Batty:

I did not come home empty handed:

merino-alpaca-silk-Shetland-angora batt

Optim from Chameleon Colorworks

And even though it’s called Lambtown, alpacas were in evidence too – look at the beautiful coats on these suris:

and indeed they were judged too:

  
And there you have it – a great day all around.