Wool to Market

Since sheering, the past two months have been busy as we have sorted, tagged and cleaned the fleece for delivery to the spinning mill.  Sorting requires further removal of fleece unsuitable for spinning because it is too dirty, brittle or the staple is too long.  The brittleness may result from poor nutrition, stress or exposure to sunlight and the elements while tagging involves removal of all of the badly soiled fleece from the edges of the skirt and the breech.  Of 22  fleece we packed a total of 135 lbs of wool into the truck for delivery to the mill  (67.5 lbs of grey and 68 lbs of white).

Since husband John was going to Edmonton, Alberta for a conference and since the mill is in Alberta, we drove out together and enjoyed the beautiful scenery through our Rocky Mountains.  The trip to Edmonton took us three days.

John with the loaded truck somewhere in the Thompson River Valley.

Once in Edmonton I was grateful to meet a friend from the Salt Spring Weavers and Spinners Guild who also has a residence in that city.  Betty guided me through city traffic and we drove down to the mill together;  a further two and one half hours across the beautiful rolling Alberta countryside.   Since I forgot the map describing the location of the mill in Carstairs, it took some sleuthing and a trip to the local post office to determine the mill is actually located about ten miles out of town on one of the rural section roads.  We saw a beautiful fox on our drive through that part of the countryside.

Destination - Carstairs Custom Woolen Mill

I had not visited the mill before and was interested in seeing the process, particularly how they maintained the integrity of each clients batch and were able to provide assurance that the finished product was indeed the wool sent to them from our sheep on Salt Spring Island.  Betty and I were given a tour of the facility which employs at least eight people.  There are three carding machines as well as spinners, plying machines and other equipment that appears to keep at least two men busy with servicing and repairs.

One of the large carders at work.

The Spinniers.

The plying machine.

Carstairs also provides knitted socks which are produced on a vintage sock machine.  These wool socks are sent all over Canada and have been keeping prairie feet warm for many years.

The sock machine.

I was greatly reassured to see my bags of wool discretely stored in their own numbered stalls as well as numbered batches moving through the mill.  While unsuitable wool of too long a staple may be removed, or substituted if the batch is too small, good sorting and adequate poundage avoids any necessity to do this.  We did bring one small bag of grey wool home that I had set aside and the staple was confirmed as being too long for the spinners.  Much to my husbands amusement, although it traveled and was left in the open bed of the truck all the way home, no-one stole it.

 Stored bags of our grey wool waiting for processing.

 And the white.

Carstairs also has a store in which they offer both yarns and their products for sale.  We arrived in time to find staff taking a much needed break together outside the store.  The day was warm and it was very hot in the barn with all the machinery working.

Staff taking a break in the heat.

 Betty's prize.  A new weaving book.

On our return trip we stopped at a new mill in Innisfree to see their production process.  Exotic Fibers of Canada offer processing of Alpaca and wool and we were interested in comparing their work with the Carstairs mill.  The business is located in an industrial mall on the edge of town.  We entered at a lower level to find a young woman, not wearing a mask and who was dying in an enclosed room with no obvious ventilation.  She directed us upstairs to the office where a man was talking on the phone.  Although his back was toward us, he could not have been unaware that we were standing, waiting to see him.  After 15 minutes during which our presence remained unacknowledged, we left.  The mill equipment could be seen through an upstairs window and there was no evidence of it being used.  The carders were clean and there were no sacks of wool visible.  Perhaps they were stored elsewhere.  We were struck, not only with the  unwelcoming atmosphere but also the inactivity and the obvious lack of concern for employee health compared with the friendly greeting and obvious camaraderie at the Carstairs mill.  I left my card on the desk in an obvious place beside the fellow on the phone but have never received a follow up call or e-mail.

Exotic Fibres of Canada - not a welcoming place.

It will likely be three to six months before I see my spun yarn which the folks at the Carstairs mill will mail back to me.  Meanwhile I kept four brown/black fleece back for hand processing.  That is an interesting process worthy of it's own chapter.