The first step of the yarn making process is to shear the sheep. We put them in the barn the night before to keep them dry. The barn is cleaned to reduce the amount of stray hay that might get into their wool. Plywood is put down to give the shearer stable footing and again a clean surface to work with.

Once the fleece is shorn it is brought to the skirting table where manure and large amounts of organic matter are removed. A second skirting happens later to remove the finer amounts of second cuts and organic matter.

The fleece is also separated out into firsts which go to the mill and seconds which we keep. All the first are taken to the mill to be processed into yarn. This involves: washing, picking, carding, spinning, and plying. The yarn is returned to us on cones which we can then weave with or sell as skeins.

The process that we use for the seconds is very similar. We wash the fleece in 5 gallon buckets, we dye the seconds, card, and hand spin the fleece into yarn, or card it into batts.