Three years ago, Sarah and I went to the Shenandoah Fiber Festival, which was a lot of fun because it was significantly smaller than Maryland Sheep and Wool and, therefore, far less crowded and overwhelming. Unfortunately, the organizers of the festival decided they’d do better by moving the festival to September and have scheduled it to overlap with the National Book Festival. While I like knitting a lot, reading is a lifelong passion and no amount of soft yarn is going to usurp its place in my heart.

I was reminded recently, however, that that is not the only woolly game in town and that the Fall Fiber Festival and Montpelier Sheep Dog Trials were this weekend.

This was another homey regional fiber festival set in the heart of Civil War battlegrounds. I would recommend it to anyone in D.C., Maryland, Virginia, or West Virginia who likes yarn or the animals that produce it. There were few lines for anything, and you had plenty of opportunities to talk to the people who make the yarn and/or roving. And this festival has the added benefit of offering a sheep dog competition, rather than just an exhibition of skills. It was really enjoyable to watch the dogs do their work.

I offer you here some of the sights of the festival:

(Note in the above photo whom the sheep are paying attention to. It is not the woman about to smack them with a stick. Instincts are hard to overcome.)

(The other dogs in the competition are loitering around the edges of the pasture. They are not doing so lazily, but in the eager anticipation of when they can get out there and boss sheep around.)

(One of the blue ribbon winners of the wearable knitting competition. This coat is made of mitered squares. Really impressive.)

Please note that not seen are the cider doughnut folks, Carpe Donut. Yum.