Category Archives: lambtown

Lambtown 2026 #2

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I am writing this post just to be complete with the Lambtown story. I need to include my booth if for no other reason for my own record.

The booth looks a bit cluttered. That may be an understatement. That’s because I have so much STUFF. The right side was all farm produced items, starting with handwoven pieces on a rack you can’t see in this photo. Then there were horn buttons and shawl pins, locally produced yarn from my own sheep and Timm Ranch, including natural dyed yarn. I included farm photos and notecards on the table. In the corner there are skulls on top and dye plant packets on the bottom. Sheepskins are on the other half of the table and Jacob fiber is on the center back wall. Notice that there is a big obstruction. I have had this space for a couple of years now and I have learned how to work around that big wood support beam

Notice also the number of people in a small booth. It was that way most of the weekend. The left half of the booth has Schacht and Ashford weaving equipment and commercial yarns that I carry.

By the end of the first day I had sold all but one of the skulls in the corner, so I filled in the space with some of the bandanas I had dyed. Most were hanging on the backside of the booth. Because I’m at the end of the row of booths, I have some flexibility about what can hang outside the back wall.

While I was talking to handing sales and talking to people all day, the Farm Club crew was showing sheep. I think Sparky may have something to say about that but she has to wait her turn at the computer!

Here is what my shop looked like when I got about half way through organizing everything. That was yesterday and tonight it still looks like that.

Lambtown 2026 – #1

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Large letters spell out LAMBTOWN and are propped on bales of sutra with orange pumpkins around.

Lambtown is the largest Sheep and Wool event in California and it is only ten minutes away from here. Lucky me!

Lambtown is open to everyone on the weekend. Before Lambtown officially starts there are full day classes on Thursday and Friday. I taught on Thursday because I spent all day Friday setting up my vendor booth and bringing sheep to the fairgrounds.

Five women holding looms with clasped warp projects they are working on in a class.

These are five of the nine students in my Clasped Warp and Clasped Weft class. They learned to dress the loom with clasped warp and spent the afternoon weaving a variety of ideas using the clasped weft technique.

Metal sheep with two large horns.

The only time I have to see the Lambtown vendors and sheep is before the festival opens in the morning. On Saturday I parked near the vendor hall and walked to the barn to feed my sheep that we delivered the previous evening. This is a sheep who lives at the fairgrounds permanently.

Wooden sheep with an arrow pointing to shearing demonstrations.

This sheep came just for the weekend.

Signs about Sheep Dog and Shearing Demos on straw bales with three pumpkins.

There are numerous events going on through the weekend.

Meridian Jacobs display pen with signs about Jacob sheep and the business.

We brought sheep to the barn Friday evening. Farm Club members set up the display early Saturday morning. They also showed the sheep on Sunday because I was in my vendor booth. There will be another blog post when I get photos.

Two Kerry Hill sheep looking up at the camera. They are white with black noses and eye spots.

There are a variety of breeds represented. The show for meat breeds was on Saturday and for wool breeds on Sunday. These sheep have Jacob markings on the face (sort of) but are Kerry Hill, a breed I had never seen.

Dorper sheep, white with black heads, in pens made of blue panels.

The Dorper is a hair sheep.

Naturally colored Shetland and California Red sheep.

Shetland sheep and California Reds shared a pen.

White faced sheep with green coat protecting fleece.

I did not have time to walk around the whole barn. From knowing some of the people showing I think there were a lot Corriedales and Merinos represented, but I don’t know which other breeds.

Sign about Traditional Tanners in Oregon advertising local , natural tanning services.

I had to get back to the vendor hall and was able to visit this booth in the barn only while they were still setting up. This is the tannery that is tanning all my lambskins now. Now that Lambtown is over I will list more on the website soon (I hope).

Wool roving dyed in many colors.

There is plenty of shopping in the Vendor Barn and two buildings. There was plenty of dyed fiber to spin or felt.

Wool yarn of all colors in boxes for viewing.

And of course there is plenty of wool yarn.

The back of a woman shopping for wool with a backpack carrying a small dog whose head is poking out the hole in the backpack.

I will share photos of my booth in another post, but for now I’ll show that shoppers come in all shapes. (This is my booth, but you can’t see much.)

Lambtown 2024 – Part 1

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Lambtown is our local fiber festival–only 15 minutes from my farm. After a very different beginning many years ago (but that would be another story) it is now a full-fledged fiber show complete with sheep, sheepdogs, contests, classes, vendors, demonstrations, and other activities. It is the first weekend of October, but starts on Thursday with classes. If I am going to teach it has to be on Thursday because I set up a vendor booth on Friday and am in the booth both Saturday and Sunday. This makes for a busy week. I knew I had to have the trailer packed up on Wednesday.

The kitchen island one of the evenings that week. I described making these buttons here. After making them I still have to put them on cards, especially for selling online later.

A friend thought that I should sell cosmos seeds to grow flowers for dyeing and printing, so I worked on that too.

I picked up the 2024 Jacob fiber from the mill on Tuesday and needed to weigh it. Some were single color bags and others are a mix of all four colors.

A few of the shop while I was still trying to decide what to pack up for the show.

Thursday morning, Brett was at work discing the pasture. That project was described here. We haven’t moved beyond the last discing. Hopefully leveling will happen soon.

Thursday there were ten students in my “Let’s Get Fancy” class where I showed hand-manipulated techniques for design in weaving.

Danish Medallions.

Brook’s Bouquet, Leno, and Loops.

Friday was a full day as we harvested lambs first. A friend brought her lambs here for one of my customers and I salted the hides. We finished around 11 and went to the fairgrounds by noon.

Here is what the booth looked like by the time I went home.

The other half of the booth. It still needed tweaking, but it was mostly done, thanks to a couple of friends who spent the afternoon helping. We still needed to get the sheep here for the sheep exhibit so I went home to load sheep.

Dan and I drove back with sheep and Farm Club members met to figure out how to best set up a display.

Stay tuned for Part 2.

Lambtown Sheep Show with Farm Club

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One of the Lambtown events is the sheep show. I live so close that I like to participate and I know that people like to see my sheep there. But I knew that I couldn’t be a vendor AND show sheep. I told the FarmClub that I would get sheep to Lambtown if they wanted to handle the show. They were willing.

This was simpler than some other shows because there were no group classes and, as at many shows, you could only enter yearlings and lambs. I sold my yearling ram at Estes Park in June so we didn’t even have to worry about who would want to handle a ram. I entered two ram lambs, two ewe lambs, and two yearling ewes. It’s the yearling ewes in this photo. These are twins born in 2022.

Farm Club members set up a display about Jacob sheep and Farm Club. All I had to do was bring a few of the panels that we use at State Fair and the box of photos and signs. I forgot that I’d be using the Meridian Jacobs sign in my vendor booth so Lisa used her t-shirt to indicate Meridian Jacobs. Clever!

I have to explain about that panel in the center. When you wind a warp on a loom you pack the layers of yarn with paper as you roll it on the beam. During one of the Sheep-to-Shawl competitions a few years ago FC member, Alison, thought that the paper used for rolling the warp could be made more interesting. As the shawl was woven, this message emerged from the back of the loom. Isn’t that a great idea?I thought it was worth laminating and using as a sign.

I did not get to see the sheep show, but many Farm Club members were there and some took the following photos.

Beth and Marina did most of the showing. The competition was from a Shetland breeder. This is the ewe lamb class.

This is the ram lamb class. The green on the ram is because our breeding season had already started and this ram lamb was wearing a marking harness when he was with his group of ewes.

Beth ended up with a challenging sheep. This ewe decided to go on strike.

We ended up with Champion Ram and Champion Ewe of the Primitive Breeds division.

Deborah helped out when a third person was needed for the champion class. Once again Beth had a less cooperative sheep, but handled him well.

Dan spent all afternoon driving the tractor and wagon that transported people back and forth from the vendor halls to the livestock area.

This was very popular not only with adults that appreciated the rides, but with kids who liked to sit in the front. Dan took extra laps to give some of those kids more time sitting on the front bench.

Lambtown 2023 was a big success for all of us. The crew that put the show on this year is to be commended for the time they spent on planning and organizing and the professionalism they brought to the event.

Lambtown 2023

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In the last post I wrote about the class I taught at Lambtown a couple of weeks ago. Now I want to share photos of my vendor booth and the sheep show.

I am still experimenting with posting from my iPad which isn’t as easy as from my computer. These photos are all entered as Medium size—that’s just a note to myself for when I review this later.

Bales of straw with the letters that say Lambtown in the early morning.

I ended up with a booth and a half space and now I’m spoiled. Will I ever want to go back to a single booth space? It’s hard to get a good feel for it from this photo. I used a rack in front to hold handwoven blankets. There wouldn’t not have been room in a single booth. There was plenty of room for people to wander in and really look at everything. There were so many people at Lambtown this year that I didn’t take this photo until after 4 on Saturday when I could finally step out of the booth. The following photos are some of the things I had in my booth.

I spent a lot of time the last couple of weeks packaging the flowers I grew and used for my own dyeing this year.

I had forgotten I had these in my shop on the farm because there is always something in front of them.

Year to Remember blankets, so called because I will custom weave these for people who want to commemorate a special year. These two use the same stripe pattern (although you can’t tell with them folded in this photo) but different colorways. The one on the left uses all naturally dyed yarns.

The hemp bag I made and wrote an article about for the most recent article of Little Looms.

The newest product in the shop and online.

The 2023 wool I just got back from the mill. I haven’t had time to put this online yet.

I have an odd variety of buttons in the shop and I brought these to Lambtown.

I brought four sheep skulls to Lambtown and sold them all. I have more at home I haven’t had time to finish.

Some of the silk scarves I’ve printed recently.

Timm Ranch yarn dyed with Indigo, hollyhock, madder, dahlia, and cosmos.

I had my own horn buttons with me and I love the way Siobhan used these two to create a closure for her woven piece.

That’s it for now. One more post for the sheep show.

Link

I have already moved onto the next adventure, but I missed writing posts about the last few and I like my blog posts (scrapbook) to be in order. I usually use my computer but I’ll experiment with writing on my iPad. If it’s easy then maybe I can get caught up and move on to this week’s event.

Lambtown Festival in Dixon, California (and only 10 minutes from the farm) is held the first weekend of October. The main event is on the weekend but classes were held for four days. I taught Clasped Warp on the Rigid Heddle Loom on Thursday. There were 9 students so 9 different warps.

NOTE. I have a way of exporting photos and uploading them on my computer that I know what to expect of the photos. I am experimenting here with sizes. The first one is uploaded “small”, the next one is “medium” and the third will be “large”.

With clasped warp you wind one yarn from one direction and one yarn from the other and they are joined (or clasped) in the middle. Direct warping is the only way that it makes sense to do this so working on a rigid heddle loom is great.

We could fit two people at each table working on opposite sides. I like how often people’s yarn choices match their clothing.

Once the looms are warped everyone sits at their own space to weave. In the past I have taught this as a half day class. Students learned the warping technique and started weaving but most of the weaving was done at home. This class was scheduled for morning and afternoon sessions.

Only a few finished weaving their projects, but that was OK because they all owned the looms. We took a class photo with warps mostly done but not off the looms yet.

Here are two that were finished and cut off the loom.

This was a fun class. I’ll be teaching it next summer at Convergence in Kansas as well as scheduling it at my place before then.