ALTAMONT — Lisa Seypura has knit a pair of mittens that, when the wearer puts her hands side by side, a ewe is formed, with the head on one mitten and the tail on the other.

The ribbed cuffs of the mittens are green grass on which the sheep can stand and graze.

“Come, see the other side,” commands Jaye Nakamura with excitement in her voice. The petite gray-haired woman is the superintendent of the Wool Nook at the Altamont Fair.

She points through a pane of glass in the nook’s display case to the back side of the mittens — and there stands a ram. Real sheep fill the barn that the nook fronts.

A yellow ribbon dangles from the cleverly designed and skillfully knitted mittens — third place.

“The judges are very technical,” explains Nakamura. “You have to sew in all the threads. The judge will turn a mitten inside out to look for dangling threads. Maybe there was one dangling thread,” she speculates.

Also, Nakamura points out, Seypura entered her mittens in a category for 100-percent commercial wool in which there were 18 entries. Another pair of mittens, in an all-over blackberry pattern, knitted by Seypura took second place. That pair, with a red ribbon, is in the same display case.

Nakamura explains there are 25 categories, and 105 wool products were entered this year.

^{Mittens as art: Jaye Nakamura, superintendent of the Wool Nook at the Altamont Fair, points to two mittens that are hung side by side, creating a picture of a ram. They were knitted by Lisa Seypura and won a yellow ribbon. The Enterprise — Melissa Hale-Spencer}

There is also a skein competition, where a judge on Saturday looked at un-knitted wool to evaluate the yarn itself.

Nakamura is a knitter herself but doesn’t enter her creations at the Altamont Fair, although they do well at other fairs.

Raised in Seattle, she came to the Helderberg Hilltowns in 1985. “We came to Westerlo when we bought our farm,” she said; the farm had been owned by Bill Corbett. “The sheep came with the house,” said Nakamura.

She decided it would be fun to raise sheep and has been in the business for three decades although it is now winding down. “We have only one sheep left — my last ewe,” she said. “My sheep were getting old. I’m getting old,” said Nakamura who is 70.

She finds the different aspects of fiber art challenging. “You can process the wool yourself, washing and carding it before spinning.” Nakamura does all of that.

Her favorite is two-color knitting. She makes mostly hats and scarves, which she gives away as presents.

She enjoys being the Wool Nook’s superintendent.  She accepts the entries, displays them, and keeps a record book.

The judge this year, Lisa Merian, is a Chenango County shepherd “active in the fiber world,” said Nakamura.

“It’s become quite popular,” she said of fiber arts. “There’s a renaissance of young knitters. It’s easy to pick up,” she said. “There are many levels of difficulty. It’s easy to learn to knit and purl and you can go from there.”

Nakamura, herself, was helped by a friend when she started knitting years ago. She concedes the directions for knitting patterns can read like a code.

“All so beautiful”

Nakamura is proud to show off the wide variety of goods on display in the Wool Nook. “This is absolutely remarkable,” she says, pointing to a blue-ribbon shawl that Stephanie D’Annibale knit in variegated colors.

Light and lacy, the bottom edge of the shawl is a bright green; the colors deepen as they near the wearer’s neck.

Next, Nakamura points out a jacket made by Mary Singer — the grand champion wool product. Woven in a jacquard pattern, the hooded jacket zips up the front.

“She wet felted it,” said Nakamura, explaining the process. “It causes the fibers to shrink to give the jacket a hard finish, making it more windproof.”

The colors on the sleeves, in the overshot pattern, are subtly different than the body of the jacket.

Nearby is a pair of fanciful mittens, with cats, made by Dawn Rzeszot. “They are hand spun, hand-dyed, and hand knit,” said Nakamura.

A beret at the base of the exhibit is fluffy and white, looking soft as new-fallen snow; it was knit with wool from an angora rabbit and won a blue ribbon.

Above it hangs the reserve champion, a tan lace Afghan made by Liz Cassidy. She knit an openwork pattern between cables in row after precise row.

The winner in the “Recycle/Renew” category is a vest, colorfully patched together from four sweaters. Christine Sitterly used a quilting technique to create her blue-ribbon winner.

In the same case is a rose-colored felted vest with a spectacular collar made of curly locks of wool. “The sheep grows it like that,” said Nakamura.

^{Not your grandmother’s vest: Eileen Testo is pictured modeling the rose-colored vest she made, a blue-ribbon winner at the Altamont Fair. The Enterprise — Melissa Hale-Spencer}

She held out a picture of the vest’s creator, Eileen Testo, modeling it as she perches on a high stool. Testo applied Victorian trim to her blue-ribbon winner.

A tiger-striped orange scarf brought Kathleen Loegering a blue ribbon, too. “She knit it using a short-row technique,” said Nakamura. “It’s very innovative with striking colors.”

“It’s so exciting when they all come in,” said Nakamura of the entries. “You never know what there will be.” This year, because there are a lot of new grandmothers who entered, Nakamura created a section displaying baby clothes.

“I love the articles,” she concluded. “They’re all so beautiful.”

Building looms

As Nakamura showed off wool products on Tuesday morning, Heather Hawley was busy using power tools to create inkle looms.

^{With sheep in the background, Heather Hawley shows off the inkle looms she builds. The loom in back is made of Douglas fir and the one in front is made of pine. The Enterprise — Melissa Hale-Spencer}

“ ‘Inkle’ is an Old English word for tape,” Hawley said. “During medieval times, there were sumptuary laws. If you were in a certain class, you had to wear certain clothes,” she said, explaining laws that kept commoners from dressing like royalty.

“Queen Elizabeth had to have the widest collar in the court,” said Hawley. “She had someone with a pair of shears to cut back anyone’s collar that was bigger.”

Hawley went on about the role of the inkle loom: “If you wanted to hold up your pants,” she said, “you had to have an inkle.”

Now, people weave the narrow strips more for creative than utilitarian purposes. Hawley herself had on display a cellphone cover she had fashioned from an inkle strip.

It is woven of both natural wool and orange wool, which she dyed with Kool-Aid. “It’s the safest,” she said of the Kool-Aid dye. “I can still use my crockpot for cooking.”

Hawley, who lives in Albany, sells the woven cellphone covers for $15.

She learned how to make inkle looms by looking online, she said. But her carpentry skills were hard won.

“I grew up in a children’s home,” she said, describing it as torture. “They had woodworking, not home ec.”

Her handiwork skills helped to educate her. “When I was 13,” she said, “knitting helped me through algebra.”

Hawley went on about her current loom-building project, “I wanted to have a loom and this was easy to build.”

The looms she was making at the fair on Tuesday morning were of pine and Douglas fir. She used cut-up broom handles, too.

Hawley is frugal in gathering her materials. She frequents thrift stores and once cut up thrift-store pants into strips to spin yarn out of them.

Hawley has also gotten wool for free. “I’m into rescue wool,” she said. “I find farmers who throw out their wool, and then I process it.”

“I sew, knit, crochet, spin, and weave,” Hawley concluded with pride.