Maddie Tiderencel, left, and Camille Utterback get Venom ready for showing Sunday, Oct. 4, at the Lambtown Festival in Dixon. Photo by Kevin Dietrich

DIXON, CA (MPG) - The 40th annual Lambtown Festival was a success, with thousands of people from California and beyond attending the event at the Dixon May Fairgrounds, Oct. 3 and Oct. 4.

There was a wide array of vendors selling everything from handspun wool, handcrafted sweaters and embroidery kits to jewelry, spinning wheels and alpaca fleeces. Also on hand was music, food, a petting zoo and sheep dog demonstrations. And, of course, there were lots of sheep. 

“I really enjoy coming here and being able to show my sheep,” said Maddie Tiderencel, 13, from the Blue Gum Ranch in Herald in Sacramento County. 

Tiderencel brought three sheep to the festival, including Venom, a crossbreed with chocolate brown fleece that she helped raise from a lamb.

There were sheep from across the western United States at the festival, touted as California’s largest sheep and wool event, with many varieties from around the state, including such locales as Winters, Quincy, Loma Rica and Montague. Others came from as far away as Idaho.

The festival is critical for the knitting community, said Margaret Drew, who operates the Stonehenge Llama Ranch in Vacaville and was selling an array of fibers, including wool, cashmere and mohair. 

“I get a lot of business from this event, because people are always looking for locally grown fibers,” said Drew, who has been coming to the festival for at least 30 years.

Sarah Pedersen of Sea Change Fibers in Milwaukie, Ore., took part in her seventh festival. Among items Pedersen was selling were hundreds of hanks of yarn. Hanks are lengths of yarn wound into large circular loops and twisted into a neat, rope-like bundles for easy storage. Each hank typically contains several hundred feet of yarn. 

“Events such as this are very important for the knitting community and independent dyers,” she said. “And I especially love the opportunity to connect with people.”

There were also a number of demonstrations during the festival, including sheep shearing and rug hooking, along with wool auctions and the Make It with Wool contest.

The festival featured nearly 80 workshops, on such subjects as rare sheep breeds, spinning yarn and processing flax.

Winners of the different Lambtown Festival competitions and events will be published in a later edition.