These photo represent the things we're doing and the animals that live on the little farm.  They are really cute, of course I may be a bit prejudice, or not, you decide.    I hope you enjoy them, they're here mostly to brighten your day make you smile or ??????????, at any rate enjoy.  Many more to come we've added  3 new boys to the herd, I think that as big as well get.  Really it's enough.  Oh we've added 6 angora rabbits to our fiber producing family.
This is Merlin yarn for the May 2010 shearing. This is really fine, soft and very luxurious.This is Merlin, he is so pretty and he does have beautiful fiber!This is Eric in his winter finery.Arthur needs constant trims to keep the hair out of his eyes... he's really a very sweet boy.Quinn in the fall. He's my go to sock guy.Eric and Quinny.. Ah those simple times when we had 3 alpacas....... Quinny, I think he's a camera hog... or maybe he's protecting the boys from the paparazzi.A little bit of everyone, May 10, 2010 on shearing day. It was hot hot hot, we sheared them and that night it went below freezing... These two little bunnies belong to Janine O'Neil. They're 6 weeks old, gotta love the little one in the back playing dead bunny.... too cuteThis is my little baby, she doesn't have a name yet, bet she's sweet and mellow... I think I feeling inspired, I may call her Mallo Cup! They're sweet... not sure about mellow.. This is my little buddy, Gilly he is so cute, not cause he's mine either. This is Pahzahn, he's a smooth collie, and he is the most gentle dog you would ever meet. Does not have an aggressive bone in his body.This is Shadow, she is just on another plane entirely. Take it however you wish, you're right.
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When raw fiber comes into the mill it's weighed. It also gets weighed after washing. You'd be surprise how much dirt is in the raw fiber. Also the are a couple of steps in processing that require an exact amout of fiber. Not too little and not too much.... just right! This is the washing machine, it's really a soaking machine because if you agitate the fiber you'll have felt. Not that felt is bad, but when you want to make yarn.....Just can't look at a washing machine too much... that's a mighty fine machine!After it's washed, it's spread out to dry, there are 18 of these open shelves.This is the picking machine and what this basically does is separate the fiber. If you were a hand spinner this would be the part where you begin to pull the washed fiber apart in order to prepare for drum carding. During this stage it is also condition, this helps with the carding process. This is the dehairing machine, not every fiber goes through this process. However, if there is much vegetation or guard hairs in the fiber this process will remove them. It's a very slow process and each fleece will be passed through 3 times in order to cull as much of the good fiber as possible.This is the front end of the drum carder, the young lady in the photo is Carol. At the front of the drum carder there is a moving belt, this belt is divided into 3 equal sections. It is critical that the same amount of fiber is fed into the drum carder. This is the back end of the drum carder, where the roving comes out.This is the draw frame, what it does is the equivilant to drafting in spinning. For you non-spinners it's stretching the fiber, and ensuring a consistent size from start to finish, don't want lumpy yarn. This is the spinning machine, if you look closely you'll see that there is white yarn being made on the machine.This is a bad picture, but it is the plyer. It looks very similar to the spinning machine, except over here you would put the full bobin from the spinner and if you want 2, 3, or 4 ply yarn this is where you would do that work.This is the skeiner, you take the plied bobbin and tie one end to the skeiner push the button ..... and Presto you have a skein. This is the cone machine much like the skeiner but instand you attach the yarn to a cone push the button.... yes, you have a cone of yarn. Amazing! A finished cone, just beautiful.
Mini Mill Process.  I use Sallie Fen's Mini Mill, I think most everyone in the general area, New England, uses her services.  I thought it would be interesting to show the steps in the process that bring the fiber from animal to skein.