STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Jan Bittenbender lives in McCall.  But sometimes she feels as if her heart belongs in Sun Valley, drawn to the Wood River Valley by a love for all things sheep.

Originally, a Seattle seed-bead jewelry artist who won Best of Show awards in Northwest regional art shows, she became intrigued in 2018 by felting, a method of interlocking and matting wool fibers to create hats and other wearables.

Unable to find anyone to teach her how to do it, she taught herself how to make felted pictures, sometimes incorporating beadwork into the pictures with Native American themes.

A woman checks out the Iris Palatte photomontage donated to the Silent Auction by Bellevue photographer Anne Jeffery.

She not only teaches classes at the Trailing of the Sheep Festival but she serves as Wool Fest Coordinator for the Trailing of the Sheep Festival, overseeing an array of fiber arts classes, workshops and hands-on demonstrations.

Bittenbender recently made the 219-mile trek from her home in McCall to Sun Valley to attend the annual Trailing of the Sheep Festival fundraiser at The Argyros

And, over a dinner of Seared Cheese-Filled Lamb patty topped with a Rosemary Demi-Glace and Vegetarian Stuffed Mushrooms, she couldn’t contain her excitement about this year’s Wood Fest Classes.

Registration just opened for the 26 classes that will be offered during the 2026 Trailing of the Sheep Festival that runs Oct. 7-11 in Hailey and Ketchum.

Amy Matthias of Future Roots was among those attending the fundraiser.

And this year’s classes include woolly wrist warmers made of sheepskin and designed with motifs conveying good wishes; needle-felted pumpkins, mushrooms and gnomes; throw pillows boasting fluffy sheep, highland cows and bunnies; dyed felted scarves; felted animal sculptures, flag ornaments celebrating America’s 250th and lovely chair pads or wall hangings involving Norwegian Skinnfell.

Bittenbender herself will teach how to make wet-felt bowls, felted paintings of grazing sheep and hatbands boasting wet-felt primroses, beaded daisies and silk cocoons.

“People come from all over wanting to be in our classes,” Bittenbender said.

The Starry Starry Night dinner and fundraiser drew an array of people eager to bid on such packages as seven nights in Waikiki or Maui, a Sun Valley season ski pass, a week’s stay at Hayden Lake in North Idaho and a BBQ at the FlatTop Sheep Ranch near Carey.

Jan Bittenbender teaches a class in using felted wool to create paintings.

Board President Jerry Seiffert dedicated the 30th anniversary of the festival to John Peavey, who co-founded the festival with his wife Diane Peavey.

“It’s only because of he and his wife that we gather tonight. And this full room is testament to how much people love sheep,” Seifert said.

Last year, Seifert said, the festival brought people from 46 states and multiple countries. In doing so, it attracted 25,000 locals and visitors. And it’s become a bucket list festival, he continued, acknowledging how the festival has been named the Top 10 Fall Festivals in the U.S. by smartertravel, One of Top Amazing Festivals in 100s of Hometown Celebrations and among America’s Wackiest Fall Festivals by The Huffington Post.

And that’s only the beginning.

Attendees had the opportunity to enter a Wild West Gamble offering a choice of hot vacation spots around the world.

We constantly hear how high quality the vendors in our Sheep Folklife Fair are,” said Sheila Kelley, who has been program director since 2010.

Every year, she continued, she learns such tidbits at the festival as how dandelions were brought from Europe because they were the first greens in spring.

The upcoming festival will feature live music from the newgrass group Molly in the Mineshaft and a Sheep Tales Gathering focused on Basque Food in the West: There to Here and Then to Now.”

And, as always, there will be a variety of Cooking with Lamb classes, the always popular Sheep Folklife Fair featuring music, dancing and vendors hawking sheep-related clothes and other items, and The Big Sheep Parade featuring a thousand-plus sheep trotting down Ketchum’s Main Street as they make their way from the mountains to winter pastures on the desert.

Check out the classes and more at https://trailingofthesheep.org/.