By EMMA HOPKINS-O’BRIEN

Indiana Correspondent

GREENCASTLE, Ind. — In late April, an annual festival at the Putnam County Fairgrounds offered not only fiber materials from dozens of vendors but, for the first time in several years, wool and fiber arts competitions as well.

The Fiber Event at Greencastle is a 26-year-old fair that sells raw materials and tools required for fiber arts such as felting, knitting, spinning and weaving. Vanessa Rich, organizer of the wool and fiber competitions at the show, is a fiber person herself and knows just how rewarding cultivating fiber and crafting with wool can be, especially in competition.

“I raise my own angora rabbits, I’ve had alpacas and I have a Pygora goat,” Rich explained. “I tend to choose not to feed my fiber, though, so I buy most of my wool and I buy locally from farmers. I’ve been spinning for two-and-a-half years, I’ve crocheted since I was 8.”

Shoppers of all fiber media come to the fair to stock up on what they’ll need to complete projects. Owners of fiber animals such as sheep, alpacas and angora rabbits in past years had little reason to go other than to sell from a vendor.

This year, however, some were able to exhibit their animals’ raw fiber in fleece competitions, and fiber artists were able to test their skills in garment and skein competitions.

“It’s a draw for both exhibitors and for other people that attend,” said Rich. “I, myself, love to enter the different fiber competitions at other places, and I’ve attended this event for several years and noticed that competitions were something it lacked, so I volunteered to organize it.”

Raw wool classes require fleece sheared from animals to be skirted and rid of excessive dirt or vegetable matter, put in clear plastic bags and shown in the categories of their respective species. Beyond that, fiber of the same species are split into categories by review of their color, softness and length.

The judge for this year’s competitions was Shawna Vencel. Rich was pleased with having 49 entries show up for competitions, but the show plans to expand that aspect of the event.

 “Our hope for future events is to initiate back a fleece auction or a fleece sale to happen after we finish the judging and have more classes,” she said. “Especially homegrown classes; we’ve got a homegrown class for the yarn, but I’d like to see one for the garment section also. In those classes, exhibitors would own, raise, process and make the entire outfit out of fiber from their animals.”