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| Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Asheville |
One of the special features of Appalachian North Carolina is the
treasured tradition of handmade craftwork that carries on today through individual crafters as well as groups
such as the Southern Highland Craft Guild. The Craft Guild will be sponsoring the 33rd Annual Heritage Weekend, celebrating the traditional music, dance and crafts of the
area, on September 21-22, 2013.
Heritage Weekend is a free festival, where you can check out diverse craft
demonstrations, including quilting, beekeeping, sheep shearing, stonecarving, furniture
making, print making, spinning, weaving, and more. In addition, regional
musicians will perform on both days.
And you won’t want to miss the 33rd Annual World Gee Haw Whimmy
Diddle Competition at 2pm on Saturday, September 21. This highlight of the
festival features participants competing with whimmy diddles – an Appalachian
mountain toy made from two sticks of wood. You rub one of the sticks against
notches carved into the other stick, which causes a propeller attached to the second
stick to spin to the right (“gee”) or left (“haw”). A competitor in the Whimmy
Diddle Competition tries to beat everyone else’s number of rotations between
gee and haw during a given amount of time, and may have to switch hands during
the contest.
Here’s a video from the Southern Highland Craft Guild showing a past Heritage Weekend:
The 2013 Heritage Weekend will take place at the Folk Art Center on the Blue Ridge
Parkway (Milepost 382) east of Asheville, just 25 minutes from the Inn on Mill Creek Bed &Breakfast.
See more details, including a list of craft demonstrators and the
entertainment schedule for both days at http://www.southernhighlandguild.org/pages/posts/heritage-weekend-7.php.