The third annual Fiber Frolic, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, June 14-15, at Windsor Fairgrounds in Windsor, sounds like the place to get happily snarled up with yarn and the animals – llamas, alpacas, rabbits, angora goats and sheep – that produce the fiber. Cost of admission is $2, $5 for a family.

“We’re hoping to empty out the city of Augusta for this one,” said Terry Beal of Jefferson, one of the festival organizers. Last year 1,300 people attended.

The event will feature animal and fiber demonstrations, lectures and workshops led by animal breeders and fiber experts from Maine, Vermont, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. Workshops and demonstrations include marketing fleece, herd management, fiber dyeing, needle felting, rug hooking and sewing with wool. Knitting and crochet basics workshops also will be offered. Workshops cost from $8-$26.

Children’s activities, no fee required, are scheduled all day, both days, and include making bunny and llama puppets, weaving, and spinning with a drop spindle.

Representatives from spinning mills in Maine also will be on hand.

Some aspects of the festival, Beal said, are strictly for fun. Such as the llama drill team – 16 llamas and 16 people marching to John Philip Sousa’s “Washington Post March,” and “Anchors Aweigh.” Or the Parade of Beasties and Buddies, led by children.

“If just one person comes to the Fiber Frolic and decides to get involved with raising animals,” Beal said, “it will be a success.”

Diane Trussell of French Hill Farm in Solon said she and her husband, Bill, who raise Coopworth sheep, have been vendors at the Fiber Frolic all three years. “It’s a way to support agricultural business in Maine,” said Diane Trussell, a spinner and former president of the Maine Spinners Registry. “The Fiber Frolic is growing every year and is a significant way to promote farming in Maine and to educate the public about what we do.” Historically speaking, she said, there was a big sheep industry in Maine in years past and farmers in Solon were part of that industry. The Trussells will sell fleeces, yarn and spinning supplies.

Weaver Deborah Bergman owner of Purple Fleece, a weaving studio in Stockton Springs, said, “I like the Fiber Frolic because it’s on a smaller scale than other fairs. You don’t feel overwhelmed with having too much to see and do. And I like that it’s confined to being only about fiber and animals.” Bergman will show her Scandinavian style weaving. “I do rep weave and shadow weave in bright, vivid colors as well as muted earth tones,” she said. “Fiber Frolic is important because it helps those of us in the fiber community find one another. Weaving is often a solitary pursuit, so it’s nice to find like-minded people with the same passion and to explore one another’s interests and ideas.”

Approximately 70 vendors will have for sale animals, yarn, raw fleece, processed fleece, sweaters, scarves, felted creatures, art work, spinning wheels, supplies for fiber art and supplies for animal maintenance.

Diners at the festival may choose from soups, salads, molasses donuts, organic lamb, lobster stew, sausages, pies, vegetarian food and ice cream.

To learn more about the Fiber Frolic, visit www.fiberfrolic.com or call Terry Beal at 549-5774.

Snippets

The machine embroidery club meets the second Saturday of the month at the Viking Sewing Center in Brewer. To learn more about the club and other classes at the sewing center, call 989-3100.

Jane Sherman Ellsworth of Pagosa Springs, Colo., who grew up in the 1940s and 1950s at her family’s sporting camps on Lyford Pond, northeast of Greenville, e-mailed: “My grandfather, Willis M. Sherman, used to knit all the tops for all the family stockings. He never learned how to drape the yarn over his index finger, preferring instead to drop the yarn, insert the needle, [knit the stitch], drop the yarn, etc. He would sit in his chair, straight as a ramrod, tongue clenched between his lips in concentration, knitting held high in front of him as he made dozens of pairs of stocking tops. He never worried about being sissified [because he knit] – he was plenty macho.”