Well you’re in luck. Belleau Wood does in fact do tours of the farm. Three Waters, not so much, but it’s run by one couple with maybe a few part-timers pitching in and they just don’t have the people to do tours. Seems like there are other alpaca/sheep farms around too (Hillsboro mabe?), those are just the closest ones I can think of. The other thing you may have missed is the Fiber Fest that happens in conjunction with the annual Ag Fest at the fairgrounds. That usually happens sometime in May. It’s a downsized version of what the State Fair was originally intended to be.
I have been doing research online and I think I am gonna use a larger circular needle and use the Magic Loop method. Eventhough what your saying makes sense so I might just try the 16 inch and see what happens.
Just remember that with a 16" you will need some same size DPN or another same needle size circ or a same needle size long circ when you do the decreases.
This is why I rarely use my 16" circs anymore and only use magic loop.
I think a longer circ will work well, you can magic loop or single loop for the band, then as I mentioned, when you get to doing the blocks, you just work on a few stitches at a time, so may not even need to do that too much.