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Fiber Festival
April 5 @ 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
*Golf carts will not be rented on April 5, 2025*
Join the Frontier Culture Museum for the 3rd annual Fiber Festival. This festival highlights the historical importance of natural fibers such as wool, flax, cotton, and hemp, and the ways in which they were processed and used by people in the past. Visitors are invited to engage with our historical interpreters as they demonstrate traditional activities related to fiber production such as sheep shearing, spinning, wool washing, dyeing, and more.
This event is a pay what you will donation day!
Workshop
Join the museum at 10 AM (SOLD OUT), 1 PM (SOLD OUT), or 3 PM for an Introduction to Portuguese Knitting Workshop! Each session is an hour and half long and is $15. This workshop will introduce knitters of all levels to an ergonomic style of knitting that lessens small movements of the wrists and simplifies basic stitch styles (such as ribbing) by only working with the yarn in front. This style is goodfor knitting while walking or standing, knitting in the round, garter stitch, ribbing, and long, sometimes monotonous stretches of stockinette. If using multiple knitting pins, it prevents color work from becoming tangled or lacking tension. This is an especially quick style. While it helps with those who have issues with wrist and finger joints, it involves heavy thumb movement and would not be suited to knitters with arthritis in their thumbs.
Participants must bring their own needles and yarn, but it can be any size or style. It must be something the participants are alright with holding around their neck. Participants must know how to cast on and how to perform a knit and purl stitch. Knowing how to “read” your knitting is also helpful.
Timed Activities
10AM: 1st sheep dog demonstration (in field behind 1820s)
11AM: Sheep shearing demonstration (in front of 1850s barn)
12PM: Heritage Breed Sheep Presentation (in 1850s barn)
1PM: 2nd sheep dog demonstration (in field behind 1820s)
2PM: Sheep shearing demonstration (in front of 1820s barn)
3PM: 3rd sheep dog demonstration (in field behind 1820s)
Vendors
The current vendors for this event include:
Original Fiber
One of A Kind
Virginia Quilt Museum
The Fuzzy Ear
Simple Hill Farm
Misty Mountain Farm
Aleta Spring Farm & Fiber
Real Keen Leashes
Fog & Honey Artisan Boutique
Farm Experiences
Which Way Crafts
Kathie’s Cinches & More
Zombot Creations
Longshot Fibers
Broken Arrow Creations
Semper Fi Farm