A Cottage Industry using Modern Technology
WARNING:-
We reserve the right to refuse to process fleeces which contain significant quantities of hard foreign matter.
The teeth on the rollers of our machines can be damaged by wood chips, twigs, alpaca toenails etc.
Such matter must be picked out before sending the fleece or, optionally, we can undertake to do this on a time-charged basis.
Fibre Processing in our Mini Mill
The raw fleece is first Tumbled (to remove loose dirt, some vegetation and short cuts) then scoured and dried.
There is then a range of options using up to eight different machines before the fleece is returned to its owners as either Rovings for hand spinners, Batts for felting (or filling duvets etc.), or Yarn for knitting or weaving.
The Yarn can be returned on a Cone, Balled (50g or 100g balls) or Skeined (in Hanks) which is necessary if it is to be dyed.
Should you prefer a blended yarn, we keep supplies of white Merino tops and Bluefaced Leicester wool (white and coloured) which we can add to your fleece.
A further option is to return plain sheets of Felt for your own use, or our two talented artists can decorate Felt sheets to your specifications (e.g. wall hangings, rugs, blankets, personalised dog/cat beds, cria coats, hanging basket liners etc.).
All fleeces are fed through the famous Mini Mills "De-hairer" before Carding. This machine removes most of the coarse guard hair which is present in all animals, and also removes vegetation, faeces and other foreign bodies.
It will be seen from the above that a clean, fine saddle will return to you a greater percentage of the received weight than will a dirty, unskirted whole fleece.