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Sep. 4th, 2010
Bethel World Sheep and Wool Festival 2010
Sep. 4th, 2010 09:07 pmThe pictures in the last post are my Aeolian Shawl, knit from yarn I bought last year at the Bethel Sheep & Wool Festival. This year my friends told me I had to enter it in the competition. Until last night we weren't even sure which of us were going, or whether we were going at all. But we made up our minds, Tammie reserved us a room, and Tammie and I drove up here this morning. Had to be there before 10 to enter into the contest. Despite missing my turn and going 10 miles or so out of my way, I was at the competition tent at 9:45 filling out the entry form.
After an hour or so of looking around at the show, during which time I bought some more yarn from the same dyer who had dyed the Aeolian's yarn (Woolie Bullie)--and told her I had entered the shawl in the contest--Tammie and I drove up to our hotel in search of lunch and possibly a nap. They weren't ready for us to check in (not unexpected at 11:30 a.m.) so we went to the cafe and ate lunch before heading back to the show. En route, I got a text from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tempesttea: "Beautiful shawl beautiful blue ribbon".
It is important to note that cell service is patchy to non-existent in this area. The only place it's reliable is a three- or four-mile stretch on the highway between the show and the hotel. Therefore, my response to Jamie went undelivered until well after four p.m. Nonetheless, we looked all over for her without success. We did find AnnieKnits and her DH.
Eventually we gave up on finding Jamie and went to watch the "Mutton Busting": little kids riding sheep as if they were rodeo cowboys and bucking broncos, respectively. It is exactly as adorable, and as high-larious, as you are imagining. I have some lousy cellphone pics that maybe I can edit into something later.
So now it's two o'clock, we watch the sheepdog demos for twenty minutes or so, and then are bored again. Let's take a walk down to the town and see what there is...What there was was a couple ladies working on hooked rugs, with more on display, as well as some period furniture, inside an otherwise unoccupied house built in the 1850's.
Bethel, it turns out, was a Christian communal colony from 1840ish to 1860ish. What the Wikipedia entry doesn't mention, but the hysterical marker in the middle of downtown does (oh, and this page has a much more complete history), is that William Keil's son was supposed to lead the new settlement in Oregon, but he died beforehand. They preserved his body in alcohol and took it with them along the Oregon Trail; he's buried in Washington State.
What *else* there was was a plethora of yard sales. We did not purchase any yards at this time--I tell you this because you looked nervous--even though one of the sales had a whole rack of womens' clothing in my size, some of it quite nice.
After all that, we went back to the show to collect my prizewinning shawl--I was able to show it off to Brenda (the dyer)--and then to the hotel for a rest and a very nice steak dinner.
This hotel is a little strange. It's part of a Christian ministry community called Heartland--group homes for youth recovering from addictions--that runs a dairy (if you live in Missouri you've seen their tankers driving around labeled "Jesus is the Answer!"), a couple restaurants, a general store, a Ford car museum, this hotel, etc. The employees of all those things are the aforementioned youth.
It's also built from cinderblock, with tiny windows, no TV, no tub (only a shower), and your choice of either very bright overhead lighting or extremely dim bedside lamps. But it's clean, the people have been friendly, no one has tried to stone us or burn us as witches, and the price was right.
At dinner we were seated next to a couple ladies that we recognized from the Sheep Show. They had been in a spinning class with Brenda, and we were sitting in the same area knitting while we waited for the end of the competition so I could retrieve my handiwork. We recognized the shrug one of them was wearing and struck up a sporadic conversation through dinner.
After an hour or so of looking around at the show, during which time I bought some more yarn from the same dyer who had dyed the Aeolian's yarn (Woolie Bullie)--and told her I had entered the shawl in the contest--Tammie and I drove up to our hotel in search of lunch and possibly a nap. They weren't ready for us to check in (not unexpected at 11:30 a.m.) so we went to the cafe and ate lunch before heading back to the show. En route, I got a text from
tempesttea: "Beautiful shawl beautiful blue ribbon". It is important to note that cell service is patchy to non-existent in this area. The only place it's reliable is a three- or four-mile stretch on the highway between the show and the hotel. Therefore, my response to Jamie went undelivered until well after four p.m. Nonetheless, we looked all over for her without success. We did find AnnieKnits and her DH.
Eventually we gave up on finding Jamie and went to watch the "Mutton Busting": little kids riding sheep as if they were rodeo cowboys and bucking broncos, respectively. It is exactly as adorable, and as high-larious, as you are imagining. I have some lousy cellphone pics that maybe I can edit into something later.
So now it's two o'clock, we watch the sheepdog demos for twenty minutes or so, and then are bored again. Let's take a walk down to the town and see what there is...What there was was a couple ladies working on hooked rugs, with more on display, as well as some period furniture, inside an otherwise unoccupied house built in the 1850's.
Bethel, it turns out, was a Christian communal colony from 1840ish to 1860ish. What the Wikipedia entry doesn't mention, but the hysterical marker in the middle of downtown does (oh, and this page has a much more complete history), is that William Keil's son was supposed to lead the new settlement in Oregon, but he died beforehand. They preserved his body in alcohol and took it with them along the Oregon Trail; he's buried in Washington State.
What *else* there was was a plethora of yard sales. We did not purchase any yards at this time--I tell you this because you looked nervous--even though one of the sales had a whole rack of womens' clothing in my size, some of it quite nice.
After all that, we went back to the show to collect my prizewinning shawl--I was able to show it off to Brenda (the dyer)--and then to the hotel for a rest and a very nice steak dinner.
This hotel is a little strange. It's part of a Christian ministry community called Heartland--group homes for youth recovering from addictions--that runs a dairy (if you live in Missouri you've seen their tankers driving around labeled "Jesus is the Answer!"), a couple restaurants, a general store, a Ford car museum, this hotel, etc. The employees of all those things are the aforementioned youth.
It's also built from cinderblock, with tiny windows, no TV, no tub (only a shower), and your choice of either very bright overhead lighting or extremely dim bedside lamps. But it's clean, the people have been friendly, no one has tried to stone us or burn us as witches, and the price was right.
At dinner we were seated next to a couple ladies that we recognized from the Sheep Show. They had been in a spinning class with Brenda, and we were sitting in the same area knitting while we waited for the end of the competition so I could retrieve my handiwork. We recognized the shrug one of them was wearing and struck up a sporadic conversation through dinner.
