When the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival announced it would be an online event this year, Shannon Okey of Cooperative Press decided to rerelease a book from the backlist, Doomsday Knits, and to her surprise sales took off.
The fiber festival is a unique and specific kind of yarn experience. Differing from a retreat or educational conference, a fiber festival has its roots in connecting small-scale fiber producers and makers to fiber enthusiasts who are looking for specialty products and to those who are curious about where yarn comes from.
If you’re a fiber artist from the Mid-Atlantic region, you’ve probably at least heard of the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival. Held annually by the Maryland Sheep Breeders Association at the Howard County Fairgrounds in West Friendship, Maryland, it’s considered one of the two premier agriculture-based fiber festivals– the other is New York’s Sheep and Wool Festival held the third weekend in October in Rhinebeck, New York.