This week we have had a very exciting package arrive in the post.
A while ago we sent of some fleece to a mill to be spun, and last week we had the brilliant news that our fleece was up next! With only a handful of mills in England that specialize in alpaca fleece, they are in very high demand and their waiting lists are long. Luckily we had sent ours off at a good time of year so we didn’t have to wait so long.
We sent ours to the East Anglia Mill, where we had fantastic service from the lovely Emma and Chris, who not only gave us a tour round the mill when we dropped off our fleece, but also kept us completely up to date and sent us photos of our fleece as it went through every step of the spinning process.
A quick run down of the process:
- The fleece is tumbled, washed, picked and treated. Then it is carded, and goes twice through the Gill machine to pull into stands.
- The Spinning part of the process involves plying, which is twisting the threads together, and then put onto giant cones.
- From there it then goes onto skeins which helps relax the fibres before going onto the final cones.
We were eagerly following along with every step and getting more and more excited as it got closer to the end.
So here we are today sitting with a nice pile of cones with our spun wool from our very own alpacas. It’s only been 4 years in the making!
While we sit and enjoy the view of our lovely wool, we are now planning some exciting things to come so watch this space!
