A Tour of Stonehedge Fiber Milll!

My local Spin Guild took a road trip yesterday and drove to East Jordan to drop off fiber and tour Stonehedge Fiber Mill!




This is Chuck, Deb's husband. He and Deb are at the helm of the mill often keeping late hours to get your fiber or yarn back to you! Chuck told us that he had still be up the night before at 3:00 am!
This beautiful fiber in the beginning of the Shepherd's Wool yarn in the Antique Rose colorway.
and here is the yarn itself........(this is the mill ends)
Stonehedge Mill is also where Mountain Colors Yarn is plyed and labeled, bet ya didn't know that!Here is Twila, my 9 year old daughter, she likes to tag along on the fiber outings!

Angie and Deb's daughter at the plying machine :)

We can't forget to say hi to Chase, the resident dog!
Alright let's get to the tour! This is where the fiber begins it's journey. First it is picked through by hand to open it up and remove any undesirables......this is a very clean Icelandic fleece.
As the fiber is picked through it is place in this bin.

After a good going through it is washed in mesh bags in the giant sinks then hung to drip dry a bit.....
then it is moved to the racks to dry the rest of the way. (In this picture is Deb and one of our guild members Christine.)

After going through the commercial picker it is moved to this spot, weighed and put through.....
the carder where it comes out looking like liquid smoke!

This contraption is placed on the machine if batts are preferred over roving.

Here is the fiber being carded before coming out of the machine.

Then we headed into the next building to see the rest of the process. This machine is being set up to spin the fiber into singles.
This is the fiber being spun into singles for the mill's yarn: Shepherd's Wool


and here are the singles on the bobbins waiting to be plied.....

the plying machine doing it's job......


and the final process: tying off the skeins.


Of course, the trip wasn't complete without a trip into the Mill's Yarn shop!



Back on the road again, we traveling to Grayling to Little Acres farm where Dawn was kind enough to share her wares!


This beautiful fibers are a blend of wool, alpaca and mohair. For those of you who are allergic to mohair, I must sincerely tell you how sorry I am! Mohair is one of my favorite blending fibers! For those of you who are interested Dawn is a seller at many fiber festivals including Northern Lamb and Wool, Michigan Fiber Festival (and a few more I forgot!)
Back at home my hand dyed skeins are dry and I am trying to decide to skein or not to skein and I am racking my brain for names for the colorways!


This one looks like seaweed to me.........

Marigold perhaps?
This one is Bob White for sure!
And for you Phatfiber phans here is a sneak peek at July's samples :)
It no wool this time so we have farm fresh batts for you with silk, firestar, angora and alpaca blends!
Oh and I have to give a shout out to my girls on Ravelry! Look ladies I am almost done!!!