According to the Show’s website  we are up to the 129^th show. I have been attending for three years and I love it, even when it’s cold and wet as it frequently is in Bendigo Victoria, at the end of July. Bendigo is a 2 hour drive north of Melbourne, the capital of the state of Victoria. For a serious fibre fanatic, this is The Place for fibre; there are other places to acquire fibre but this is the mother of them all.

The first point I must make about this show is that at its heart it is an agricultural show. Yes, there is lots of fibre for sale, and there are competitions for knitting and weaving and people weaving rugs and dyeing with natural dyes, but the main business of the show is the showing of sheep in classes, the winning of ribbons, the networks of woolgrowers who are using this show as a benchmark of the quality of their livestock. And by all measures the merino is king. The size of the new building added to house the merinos and their close allies the Corriedales and polwarths is huge. This is not an event where hand spinners get to buy show fleeces because the top quality fleeces are far too valuable to sell to a hand spinner. In many cases even getting close to the sheep is hard because judging takes place seemingly round the clock and usually several different breeds are being judged at the same time in different locations. If you are lucky and persistent and hang around, you can talk to the woolgrower; it is easier to talk to alpaca owners, or cashmere growers as they are not as dependent on getting ribbons here and are often eager to recruit you as potential animal owners. I have had many a long talk with cashmere growers (and this may be why my heart has been stolen by these plucky little characters).

There is also a methodology and structure in place for judging animals that may bear little to do with what hand spinners (or the commercial dealers) are interested in. I listened to a judge evaluating angora goats and commenting that the industry should consider abandoning its long held distinctions in grading goats into categories of age and instead go to micron count which is what the market wants to know. We know the term “kid mohair” but what exactly does that mean across the breed and around the world as far as the basic qualities of the fibre?

The show itself consists of many tents of varying sizes (and a couple of large metal buildings) housing sheep, goats and alpacas. In addition there is a largish building in which simultaneous competitions in shearing and wool-classing are held. As I said above, the merinos and their allies have their own enormous building. The goat tents are smallish and last year attendance was severely down in angora goats. The cashmere people seem almost more a social group than an agricultural group but that’s said as an outsider, and I have bought fibre directly from them twice. Alpacas are very popular because, let’s face it, alpacas are adorable and everyone wishes they had one (or more). They flutter their long eyelashes at you and who can resist? As a side note to all of this showing business there are classes not just in the sheep but also in the handlers, so there are junior alpaca showers as well as classes in various types of alpacas. The “British breeds” are in separate areas; this includes breeds such as Border Leicester and Suffolks. Some breeds, such as Finns, have too low a population to support a full show and judging and inhabit a little tent along the main walkway. Coloured sheep as far as I have been able to distinguish do not have any shows of their own.

Attached to the business end of the agricultural show is an ever-increasing collection of related businesses. Some are directly aimed at woolgrowers, such as portable fencing, shearing equipment, sheepdog trials, and sellers of coats. There are craft buildings where displays of knitted and woven garments are displayed with ribbons. There is a fashion parade (fashion show) of the winners in the hand crafted items as well as a parade of commercially made woolen garments all designed to highlight the versatility of wool. The craft buildings also house some of the craft vendors who are selling fibres, dyes, demonstrating weaving, wood turning, felting, etc. There are additional commercial exhibition buildings which can be a mix of products firmly aimed at knitters (the local Colinette wholesaler) and those specifically at woolgrowers and an increasing number of the type that seem to pop up at state fairs/agricultural shows selling everything from pruning saws to leather treatment.

Fibre is what I go to Bendigo for as I have no local knitting store, and very little access to buying unspun fibre at all. Most of the bigger retailers of spinning, weaving, and knitting supplies attend as well as some who only sell spinning fibre or dyeing equipment. But this is not a show like Rhinebeck; this is an agricultural show and the sheep are definitely the stars and the reason why these folk gather at this not very comfortable locale in the middle of winter. Most of the vendors I deal with have little online presence and may actually be more into wholesale rather than retail. Some show up at regional wool festivals like Canberra’s wool sale day in May, which has a stronger emphasis on finished garments than the supplies. Australians living in Sydney or Melbourne have an easier time finding fibre than those in regional Australia. I always pick up a copy of The Wool Pages which is downloadable from AWI (link below). In this way I can get in touch with woolgrowers directly, especially if I want a rare breed fleece, and I find making a contact with a wool grower a very satisfying experience. In general, there are few “spinners’ flocks” here as the wool clip goes into large conglomerations and the vast majority gets sold this way overseas. All that fine merino from Italy seen in northern hemisphere knitting shops probably started on its way from the sheeps’ backs around me here.

The drought (which is in its 6^th year as I write and shows no signs of abating) has had severe effects on the wool industry in Australia. Some think perhaps it has been a blessing in disguise because it has weeded all but the best producers and the best livestock out of the business, but it has broken many hearts as well. Attendance in 2006 was down and I shudder to think of next year’s turnout. The picture I have supplied do not all originate at this year’s show, and show my bias for the animals over trying to take photos in big drafty buildings full of vendors.

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Carol is an accomplished spinner and creative knitter and blogs about her life in Australia and her work at Swanknitter.