Earlier this year, several Fibreshed members (Georgina, Amy, and Bobbie) had the opportunity to purchase a clip of Gotland fleeces from Tsolum River Ranch, on Vancouver Island. We ended up with 17 kg of skirted raw wool and began our “Gotland Processing Project.”
Our first decision was how and where to get the wool processed. The HOW was easy, since all of us were spinners and were looking forward to creating our own yarn. The goal, therefore, was to have the wool processed into roving.
The WHERE was more challenging. The “hopefully-soon” mill on the island (Up A Creek Farm & Mill in Qualicum Beach) was not functional yet. Two other small mills in British Columbia were not taking fleeces, so we cast our net further. We considered Custom Woolen Mills but finally decided to go with St. Mary Meade Farm and Mill in Alberta.
At that point we needed to get the wool to St. Mary Meade. The raw fleeces were compressed into a cardboard box that was scrounged from a local Volkswagen dealership and sent through Canada Post. Dawn, the mill operator, kindly kept us abreast of the wool processing via photos of the scouring, picking, and carding stages. When the roving was sent back to us – also through Canada Post – we were thrilled with what we received!
This project had a steep learning curve regarding the costs associated with sending fleeces to a mill. In our case, there was the obvious cost of shipping to be added onto the mill’s operational invoice. Like many on Vancouver Island, we can hardly wait for Up A Creek’s mill to be up and running! We would definitely recommend St. Mary Meade Farm and Mill for anyone in need of processing a large number of fleeces. Dawn Kingston, the proprietor of the mill, was a delight to work with. She raises Cotswold sheep and actually branched into opening a processing facility when she had difficulty locating a mill that would accept long wool fleeces.
