Shepherd's Harvest Festival 2014

The Shepherd's Harvest Festival is an annual event held at the Washington County Fairgrounds near Lake Elmo, MN and I have gone for the last four years. It was me and my mom hitting the festival again this year. I like to get there when it opens on the first non-class day so I get to see the most amount of yarn and wares from the vendors. (Greedy little yarn diva that I am - I don't want to miss a thing with building up my yarn stash!) 

This year we decided to start in the last building first as that building tends to get high traffic and is hard to maneuver, and that is all because of the gentleman above who graciously welcomed me and my mom when we walked in the door. That is StevenBe who is also known as The Glitter Knitter and he is just the warmest, kindest person. He is doing a tour this summer across America with Stephen West and my head kind of explodes to even think of that level of awesome combining. (Ok - Enough with the fan girl!)

So the festival this year had three buildings set up for vendors rather than four, so it did feel a little scaled back to me. This is also the first year that they charged for entry, so I thought that was interesting. Frankly I think they should have charged all along as it is such a wonderful festival, and anything that they can do to sustain it is good with me!

There were spinners here and there, like this gentleman from the Blackberry Hills booth. So fun to watch! This was a busy booth and is you can see behind where he is spinning, they had some gorgeous handmade shawls for sale along with their other items. The shawls were just beautiful!

This is another example of a vendor booth. So much yarn and fiber goodness! This was at the entrance to one of the buildings and had great light and you pretty much just walked right in to an explosion of color and fiber fun when you walked into the building. So awesome.

Although I am not much for fleece, I do appreciate what it gets turned into, so that makes me like the fleece even if I have no use for it. (I WILL NOT SPIN! If I keep saying that it will be true, right?) It was pretty much impossible to walk buy a bag of fleece and not plunge your hands into it.

Here is a picture of me holding the reins of Lonnie the Llama. Lonnie is about 8 years old according to his human and he was so majestic. We were walking across the fair grounds and I spotted him and had to go meet him. My mom snapped this shot of me grinning wildly up at Lonnie. I just wanted to hug him and take him home!

After meeting Lonnie we headed over to the critter barn and got to see some llama's and alpaca's. It is always so fun to get up close to these guys and see them in touching distance.

 

Next we were off to the Sheep shearing which was just impressive. This gentleman can shear a sheep in no time and we watched him shear several breeds of sheep and learned a lot about the sheep as well.  Really neat!

So I managed to control my splurging this year better than years past. This is the haul I came home with. Some ridiculously reduced price yarns at one booth - like the Boku and the Nashua yarn. The white skeins are 100% alpaca from a vendor that I search out for at this festival every year. Really nice guy and the yarn is like touching heaven. Am quite pleased with my stash enhancements this year and also proud that I controlled myself a little bit.

My other bit of wonderful I picked up is this mug. Both me and my mom got the same mug and I use it all the time. It makes me smile every time I see it and it's just a fun addition to my festival memories.

All in all it was just a wonderful time. I love going to this festival and it was great fun spending the day with my mom and touching fiber and talking yarn and eating deep fried egg roles while sitting in the grass and watching the people with all their hand knit items being worn (quite a fashion show!) while they walked the fair grounds. I look forward to this every year and it's just something special.

Shepard's Harvest Festival, Part 3 - The Haul

And for my final installment, I thought I would show my gluttony off and post a couple photo's of the fabulousness that I brought back home with me.

I try really hard at these festivals to buy things that I cannot purchase at my Local Yarn Shops. This is actually a little hard to do as my local yarn shops are really really good! The Twin Cities is blessed with MANY wonderful shops and several of them had booths set up at the yarn festival. I love StevenBe "The Glitter Knitter" and his shops The Yarn Garage in Rosemount and Steven Be in Minneapolis, but his booth is ALWAYS swamped and I actually just try to do a quick drive by and then stay away. It reminds me of a beehive where all kinds of people are flying in and doing that intricate dance that bee's do when they fly into the hive and tell the other drones where the sweet sweet nectar can be found. His booth is like his stores - just filled with things that stop you in your tracks and make you reach out and touch things. I struggled this year to just zip by. Got caught on some Three Irish Girls yarn next to a DayBreak Shawl (I think this is actually the shawl that was on display!) but I untangled myself and kept going. Then I had to walk by again (these things happen) and my eyes fell on this bag below.

I grabbed it and slowly made it to the register and purchased my bag. Love it! I found out they are part of a line of Zombie totes and accessories put out by the blogger and pod caster Tina Henry. Will have to get more Zombie goodness in the future!

And below is all my wonderful haul laid out on my table when I got home. You will notice to the right there is a large pile of Brown Sheep yarn. I got this at over half off the price I normally pay and this is one of those yarns that I use A LOT. I mean all the time. So I kind of HAD to buy two large bags full and blew a large chunk of my pool of saved funds right then and there. I felt a little sad that I was bringing home a big pile of yarn that I can get easily and that I have used so much - but the savings I got it for made me happy again.

The lower left hand corner has a bunch of random alpaca that I kind of just had to have. The kind that you touch and end up opening your wallet and throwing money at random people in the hopes that the alpaca will then follow you home. Lovely Lovely stuff from alpaca owners.  There are also a few bold colored skeins up front that came from Happy Hands Yarn. I love this yarn dyer! She is just such a sweet sweet woman and her hubby is great too. We talked to them last year and I got to talk to her briefly this year. I am ALWAYS drawn to her colors and both years at the festival I have come home with a pile of her yarn. She also dyed the yarn for Lila & Claudine's Shop Hop in 2011 and it was the best yarn in the bunch! Just wonderful yarn and I will look for her booth every year.

I bought a few canned items from a person who had a booth in the barn. Sauerkraut and Strawberry-Rhubarb Jelly.  The sauerkraut is already half gone and I wish I would have bought a LOT more. It's something I will be watching for at other festivals. YUM! And in the above photo you will kind of see on the Zombie bag a spoon rest in the shape of a sheep! Yup! Brickyard Pottery & Glass had a booth and I had to have one of the sheep spoon rests. I was a little annoyed that the back was rough and she pretty much told me I could take it home and sand it and it would be fine. It would have really messed up any sort of counter top or wood table. Lucky for me I have a plastic cutting board on my counter under my coffee maker that it can rest on without hurting anything and I use it everyday now! WIN!

One of the yarns I fell in love with and ended up buying A LOT of was the yarn from Sun Valley Fibers. They have a Ravelry Group and they have an on-line store as well. The orange and black yarn (called Oriole!) and the next 5 skeins (stopping at the one marked CORAL) are all from them. They were one of the few boothes that took credit cards and I kind of went bonkers. The yarn was just so yummy I couldn't stop myself! (No - I don't knit socks and YES it is all sock yarn!) I do however have a lot of shawl patterns in my que on Ravelry so ... yeah. I should be good now hu. The multi colored red/orange yarn 7 skeins up is a yarn I went back to three times. It is called "Girl On Fire" by JL Yarnworks. I kept asking myself if I really loved the yarn or if I was just hooked on the name? Turns out it was both. Home it came! And way up at the tippy top are a gray and a yellow skein of corn yarn from Corny Goodness. If you haven't heard of corn yarn here is their "about page" where they talk about how wonderful this yarn is. (anti-bacterial, anti-odor..... all kinds of cool properties to this yarn!) They had a baby blanket made from this yarn there and I was quite taken with it - and may make one out of this fiber some time in the future.

And here is the mug I purchased at the festival. When I went to put this in my backpack I accidentally elbowed another woman in the boob! Color me embarrassed! She made a joke about me getting the other one too and that maybe they would grow a little bit bigger. Hee hee! At least she wasn't upset!

The festival was just wonderful and I had such a good time. I am already looking forward to next years festival!

Shepard's Harvest Festival, Part 2

For my Part 2 post on the Shepard's Harvest Sheep & Wool Festival I thought I would share some animal pictures from the festival. But not quite yurt. First - A photo of a YURT!

I decided not to wonder in (Lots of people and a little warm out) but I did admire the yurt and the awesome Spinning Wheel. Even more intriguing to me was the the loom in the shape of a giant triangle. This is a Shawl Loom and the lady working it said she can get a giant shawl in just an hour or two! Amazing! I found a link to Triangle Shawl Looms here if you want more info. I find it fascinating! (Can you imagine the stash busting possibilities??!)

In one of the main buildings they had several tables set up with different breeds of Bunnies on the tables and nice cards that told you what breed the bunny was and what it produces for fiber, etc. They were all just so squishy and wonderful! Just wanted to go give them all a big squeeze!

A Trio of pretty Alpaca. They are so cute! They really curled up together a lot and would spend a lot of time moving away from the hands reaching out to touch. They are such sweet critters! In the background you can see some shawls hanging and some art work on display. Everywhere you looked here there was something else to draw your attention. It was fantastic!

It seemed there were a lot more llama in the barn when I went through than alpaca. These guys seemed to pose for me as I snapped my photo. They have such pretty eyes and expressive ears!

I borrowed my hubbies camera for the day and his camera makes a shutter noise when you snap a picture. This guys/girls (not sure of the sex) ears would come up AFTER each shot. Like they were wondering what that sound was. It was funny. Around my 4th picture the lady standing next to me started to laugh.

You got to love how proud this one looks even though some of it's lovely locks have been shorn. Behind him you can see the thin neck and cute head of it's neighbor who got shorn up to the head. I think they are so endearing when they are shaved and have these long scrawny necks. Just pen after pen of cute and funny.

And lastly for this post, a shot of the human animals walking around the pens. This is half of the barn - meaning there was another aisle just like this on the other side of the barn. There were a few critters I did not get to take pictures of as I couldn't get very close. The baby lambs had a big crowd around them of course!

Stay tuned for Part 3 of the Shepard's Harvest Festival post were I will show off my haul!

Shepard's Harvest Festival 2012, Post 1

It was Mother's Day this past weekend which means it was also the annual Shepard's Harvest Wool and Sheep Festival in Lake Elmo, Minnesota. (YAY!) This year I went all by my lonesome since my hubby had an event of his own to attend. And this year the weather was amazing and the place was just A ZOO! I am happy it's so popular - but boy was it exhausting!

Instead of having a mile long post, I thought I would share a few pictures over several days. The web site has a wonderful description of what the festival is all about, so I will quote them here:

"Shepherd’s Harvest Festival is an opportunity for rural and urban people to meet and share information about sheep and sheep products and other fiber-producing animals. The Festival was started in order to provide a venue where wool producers, wool consumers and wool artisans could come together and share the excitement of working with sheep and their fantastic product – wool. Gradually, the Festival has grown to include other fiber animals such as angora rabbits, alpacas, and goats. The Festival strives to be a family oriented event that is not only fun but educational. Numerous classes are offered in the fiber arts — geared for all levels of experience — from the beginner to the expert. Each year, we offer some classes in the less well known fiber arts so students can expand their crafts expertise Many vendors of fiber and fiber animal related products show their wares at the Festival through a juried selection of vendors of unique products. If it’s fiber related, you probably will find a vendor with just what you have been looking for.
To add to the fun of the Festival, there is live entertainment each day. Demonstrations are ongoing for sheep shearing, herding dogs, spinning and knitting. Activities are planned to spark the interest of youngsters. Judging, showing and selling of fiber from sheep, angora rabbits and alpacas give you the opportunity to view some of the finest fleeces in the Upper Midwest and to compare your skills at selecting fleece with highly regarded fleece judges. There are many activities at the Festival. Feel free to peruse the activities listed in the right hand column of events at the Shepherd’s Harvest Festival. Then come and join in the fun at this year’s Festival! Thank you to the entire fiber community for making this event such a success!!"

This first photo is a view from the entrance of one of the buildings. These buildings are just HUGE and they were packed full of vendor's and music and demonstrations. It was just wonderful. I believe this was an area where you could go up and try different types of wheels. I am not a spinner, so I just admire all the doodads and doohickeys I see at the festival. There were so many ways to play with fiber being shown - it was mind blowing!

Here we have the same building but I aimed my camera down the other aisle. All the buildings had vendors down both sides of the buildings and then a row in the middle as well. I believe there were Four Primary buildings that were as full/busy as this and then other buildings with animals, classes, competitions, etc....

This was the food vendor area and they had sheep sheering here and a yurt set up and all kinds of cool stuff. I took this picture early on in the day - maybe 30 minutes after the gates opened. An hour later it was hard to walk around here there were so many people everywhere! The lines for the food were insane. I had promised myself this year I would get the Fried Walleye chunks with homemade tarter sauce - but alas. It twas not to be! I just couldn't bare waiting in the long long line on something that would blow my diet all to hell. I did get me some cheese curds though!  (DOH! So worth it though!)

I want to say these ladies were with a guild - but I can't remember now. You think you will remember all these details after you get home - but boy does it all dissolve into a colorful blur pretty quick! At any rate, these gals had several wheels set up and were spinning fiber. I know the lady in the red sweater was next to me in a line were I bought a whole bunch of stuff, and she said she was going to hit the booth owner up for donations - so I know they were with some non-profit type guild type thingy. (Oh boy - great memory Jen!)

And here we have Elmo the sheep. I didn't understand this when I read about it in the notes, but we could bring handmade decorations to "decorate" Elmo. I would have loved to have brought something for him to wear!

And here is one more view into a different building. I was standing in the doorway looking down - and you can make out the other entry way way down on the other end. I think I can safely say there wasn't much that was not sold here! It was just amazing. I spent about 4 hours here and I was just pooped when I left. But I also had a trunk loaded with goodies! Stay tuned and I will share my Stash Enhancement Photos in the very near future!