The journey of wool!

Last week some friends and I went over to Saltspring Island.

One of them had to go to a meeting and afterwards we

went off to visit a small spinning mill.

Did you ever think of the journey which takes fleece to finished wool?


(Stella from Tugwell Creek Farm)

First there is all that growing of the fleece...the munching of grass and the

long wet winters and then the beginning of summer and off it comes!

Then it is brought to a mill...

           This is a small-ish operation but does quite a bit of processing

for people and shops on the Gulf Islands and Vancouver Island.

So we begin with raw fleece...

Then it's put into these big tubs for washing which is done with

cold water and NO agitation, otherwise it will felt.

After cleaning it goes into an old washing machine for just the spin cycle.

Then off to be air dried it what is basically a giant dehydrator

about 6 feet by 4 feet...

         Here is Amy who graciously gave us the tour.

She's from the East coast of Canada but lives on Saltspring now...

Here she explains the next step which is a carder...

            The wool is fed into a hopper and then feeds through these fine teeth

to separate the fibres...

It always amazes me to think of the person who invented such a machine!

Next it goes through a series of a few other machines of which I can't exactly

remember what they all do but eventually the one they call

"Rumplestiltskin" spins it into wool...

You do not want to get your fingers caught in these machines or

no more knitting for you!

And magically here you go...

Alternately your wool can be left in the 'roving' stage (which is what I use for needle felting) and can be spun yourself or put into this machine...

The unspun wool is put in between the two big grey trays which have a surface

to agitate the fibres. For now it was being used as a shelf.

It is closed down sandwich style and run for about

15 minutes and VOILA...

FELT!

Sure saves a lot of time and arm muscles!!

Here's some of the waiting fleece and roving (unspun clean wool)...

Tools of the trade...

The Mill...

Small but mighty.

So next time you pull on a sweater or go to knit yourself some socks,

think of the journey this amazing fibre takes to get there.

 

P.S

Just outside the mill is the gate to the recycling depot which had the greatest design!

Recycling at it's finest...