A Day At The Woolen Mill

An unbelievable selection of yarns and handmade things. Gorgeous!

Oops! That's my James again. :)

This was such an interesting picture to me. It really shows the whole story. It is of course a composite picture. But you can she the shearing of the sheep. Before and after shearing. Really interesting.

Remember this comes off a farm animal. They have straw, dirt, stones, poop and everything else in their coats. It has to come clean.

The actual first step is picking the wool by hand. People actually hand pick the wool to pick out the obvious straw, rocks or whatever.

Then it is washed in these huge vats of water and detergent. The water is 150 degrees Fahrenheit. And it is washed and washed until it is very clean.

It was an amazing process to watch the young man using his rake to keep agitating the wool in the soapy water.

The next step is to Pick the wool on the Big Machines. When the wool is dryed it is in those curly rovings, It needs to be spread apart in a more loose fashion.

This is one of those machines. These machines are all original equipment. And it is all maintained and repaired by the Mill Workers. There are about 25 employed workers at this Mill.

Most of the machinery in the country (USA) has been sent to China. And is no longer a craft of America. There are only a few Mills still operating. So they have to be self sufficient in their running of the mills.

This Macine has thousands of little steel needles on all those rolls. As the picked and clean wool runs across them it pulls them apart and flat

Comes off in very soft roving.

This is truly amazing, This has so many pieces to it, I can not imagine how anyone would be able to repair it. But this huge machine can knit a pair of socks in 6 seconds!!

No joking, SIX Seconds!

I hope you can see all the spools of yarn at the back of the machine and all the lines of yarn.

They had a long row of these sock knitting machines in a row. Unbelievable!

Look at that beautiful Quilt batting. I love it!

Remember this all came off those huge carding machines. Giant rolls of it.

This has not been picked for the second time by machine. So it is really curly. But is is so soft. Unbelievable.

Think about it, have you ever seen a straight hair sheep?

This is actually Buffalo Wool! This wool has been picked many times and carded twice and this is what is the undercoat of the Buffalo after carding. It is So soft you wouldn't believe it.

The problem is it takes so much of their wool to get a little of this it is VERY expensive.

There are other by products of the Buffalo wool But nothing compared to this.

This is the final product. All that gorgeous yarn is now put in a format that the consumer can handle and put to crafty use.

After the roving has come off the carding machine in those huge rolls at the top of the machine, it is put through this machine and plyed. Into 2 ply, or 3 ply, or 4 ply, or sock yarn, or whatever. It then will go through the spooling machine. that we saw above.

This was a wonderful day for Jim and I. It was so interesting to learn about an industry that is so huge in our country, but has become outsourced to other lands.

And to find people that care so much about a dieing art form that they are single handedly keeping it alive in this area. One of the few in this country that remains a family operated Woolen Mill.

It was truly fascinating, and I hope you were able to glean a little of the experience within this lens. I wish you could have been with us.

It is not everyday you get to invite your friends from all over the world, especially my squidoo and tagfoot friends, to a day trip to Frankenmuth, Michigan. And a wonderful day at the Woolen Mill. We are glad you could come.