#lambtown

Every year, California’s largest sheep and fiber festival, Lambtown, takes place in Dixon, CA. On the second day of Lambtown, teams of eight compete in a “sheep to shawl” competition, where the teams must start the day with un-spun wool and end the day with a 72” woven shawl. Teams may “warp” a loom ahead of time (where you thread the loom with its foundation of parallel threads), but on the day of competition they must spin their wool into yarn and weave it into a complete shawl.

This year competition was stiff, and very very close, and the winning team finished their shawl with two and a half minutes to spare.

I frequently hear about “needing to keep “politics” out of fiber arts, but art is inherently political.

These were beautiful, masterfully spun, woven, and finished shawls and that in itself is worthy of note.

But watching this team of eight would fight for hours, and pour their love for their community into their art was deeply moving and I am still reveling in the opportunity to have seen this win.

California is a huge state! In general things are bigger in scale here than on the east coast! And the agriculture is so much more here! So why was the sheep and wool festival 1/3 the size of the MD sheep and wool festival I went to in 2022?

H is for…

More than happy to be petted — sheep at Dixon Lambtown Festival

The theme of Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week is Letter H – Topic for this week is Happy.

You can either have photos of people or animals being happy or photos that things that make you feel happy.   Have fun with this week’s challenge.

“I’ll take all the petting you’ve got, thanks.”