Fred DePaul, a professional shearer with 63 years of experience, demonstrates shearing techniques at Williamstown Rural Lands' Sheep to Shawl Festival on Saturday at Sheep Hill.

WILLIAMSTOWN — Fred DePaul has been working a pair of shears for nearly as long as he can remember.

As a kid, his sister had a few sheep and couldn’t find anyone willing to clip them, so he volunteered.

“Then neighbors heard about it,” the professional shearer said. “This year makes 63 years I've been doing it.”

On Saturday at Williamstown Rural Lands’ Sheep to Shawl Festival, DePaul demonstrated his skills at Sheep Hill in front of a crowd of families. He used traditional hand shears, an old hand-crank machine and modern electric clippers.

The festival, held from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., brought families, fiber enthusiasts and local residents to the hillside property for a day focused on how wool moves from a sheep to finished products. Along with shearing, the event featured sheep-herding demonstrations, fiber arts, crafts for children, food and live music.

As he worked through the sheep, DePaul explained why shearers avoid cutting too close to the skin and what makes good wool. Any wool from the stomach, he said, is called belly wool and is “a poor, poor quality” because the sheep lie on it and it gets dirty and matted.

While shearing a sheep he estimated to be about a year old, he showed the crowd how to tell a sheep's age by its teeth and explained that since wool takes about a year to grow, it was likely the animal's very first shearing.

Farther up the hill, border collies from Little Brook Farm, handled by herder Kristen Whittle, gave live herding demonstrations. Using whistles and voice commands, Whittle directed 2-year-old Gaia as she gathered and moved the flock in controlled patterns, while explaining to the crowd how border collies rely on eye contact and body position, rather than barking, to move the flock.

“Wherever I go around the sheep, the dog wants to keep them to me,” she said. “The herding instinct is a very refined huntiness.”

Border collie Gaia, handled by Kristen Whittle of Little Brook Farm, herds sheep during a live demonstration at the Sheep to Shawl Festival in Williamstown on Saturday.

Whittle used traditional commands such as “come by” and “away to me” before transferring those commands to a shepherd’s whistle.

Children spent time muddied up near a small pond with nets, looked at sheep up close and rotated through activities in and around the historic farmhouse. Inside, volunteers helped kids make small sheep crafts to take home.

Several fiber and craft groups showed what happens to the wool after it leaves the sheep. Hilltop Farm & Fiber Arts demonstrated fiber dyeing and sold dyed fiber, while members of the Green Mountain Weavers and Spinners Guild demonstrated carding, spinning and weaving, turning fleece into yarn and then into cloth.

Families gather at Sheep Hill in Williamstown for the annual Sheep to Shawl Festival on Saturday, hosted by Williamstown Rural Lands.

Other local vendors sold pottery, maple syrup and local yarns. Live music ran through the afternoon with performances by Jared Polens, Felix Sun, Jay Corey, Tendai Muparutsa and the “MoCA jam crowd.”

At the end of the demonstration, DePaul stood before a heap of wool with a circle of wide-eyed kids surrounding him. "I just get it off the sheep," he said.