Our Process

Our steps: Receiving - Washing - Drying - Picking - Blending - Carding - Pin Drafting - Spinning - Packaging

Receiving your fiber

Incoming fleeces are weighed, bagged, and evaluated for processing quality. Your name is written on the bag and an identification tag is added.  An estimate is completed and e-mailed to you as soon as your fiber is checked in. This bag stays with your fleece during the entire process, assuring that you get your own fibers returned to you.

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Washing

Most fibers, with the exception of angora bunny, must be washed before processing. We prefer to wash all incoming fiber. We use perfume free, bio-degradable detergent, grease remover and 150+ degree soft water to wash your fibers. We wash fleeces until they are squeaky clean. Fibers are carefully handled to avoid felting. Our machines are tubs without aggitators. Basic pricing includes up to two washes and three rinses. Extra charges apply to fibers that require extra washing.

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Drying

After washing, fleeces are placed on drying racks and air dried. After drying, the fleeces are put back into your bag and sent to the picking room.

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Picking

Most fibers require picking for satisfactory blending, especially if you are mixing fibers from more than one animal. If your fiber is over 8 inches (6 inches for yarn), please consult with us before sending them. Longer fleeces may incur some fiber breakage. Basic pricing includes a single pass through the picker. Where additional picking is requested or required for blending an extra charge applies.

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Blending

We offer several blending techniques, so please talk to us about the “look” you are trying to achieve so we can determine the best mixture to achieve that look.

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Carding

We offer roving in coils. You may also choose batts or webs. We recommend webs for short exotic fibers such as  kid mohair, and dog. Most other fibers work nicely as roving.

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Pin Drafting

Fibers may be pin drafted to align them in a parallel fashion. This makes it easier to draft the roving and produces a “worsted” type yarn. Fibers must be pin drafted several times to prepare them for machine spinning.

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Spinning

We machine spin your fibers to the weight you desire. Pin drafted roving is spun at twist rates of 3 or more turns per inch. 2, 3, 4 or more single strands are then twisted into yarn. Yarn with strands of lesser twists will be loftier, where-as yarns with strands of greater twist will be stronger. With camlids in particular, improved yarn strength and thus garment memory and wearability is obtained with the addition of 10% or more of suitable wool, silk, bamboo or cotton. We will not add fibers without your permission.

Fibers of mixed length are difficult to spin and may yield yarn with irregularities. Similarly, vegetation and other contaminates will effect the quality of the yarn produced. Our cottage spun yarns may have inconsistencies due to these factors, thus our guarrantee does not apply to these conditions as they are outside our control.

Packaging

• Batts are layered, folded in tissue paper and bagged several to a bag.
• Webs are layered into a bag.
• Pindrafted fibers go through a can coiler, into a large plastic bag.
• Roving from the card is either dropped loose in a bag or coiled into a can coiler.
• We vacuum pack most shipments in order to reduce your shipping costs.