A visit to a spinning mill

Harrisville Designs manufactures looms and yarn (and probably other things). We had the privilege of visiting their yarn spinning mill when I was in Harrisville a couple of weeks ago. They are the only mill that spins woollen. Most other commercial yarns are spun worsted. They spin their own yarn as well as yarn for a couple of other brands. One of those brands is Jared Flood's Shelter and Loft yarns.

As you enter the mill, you see bins of scoured and dyed virgin wool. You can see a close-up of what the wool looks like above. Below, you can see the bins that contain the raw material for Jared Flood's yarns. This wool is  like ingredients in a recipe. Colors are mixed together to create the heathered effects that we love so much.

The bins below contain Harrisville's own line of ingredients. The base colors are different so the ingredients are kept separate.

 There was some other fiber that was bagged. I took a picture of this green fiber spilling out of one of these bags. It is difficult to see how this will become yarn.

There are also bins of waste fiber. Harrisville tries to recycle as much of the fiber as they can so they are bagged up and used for various purposes. If they can use them, they will. Otherwise, they are sent off to others who will use it for other purposes.

There were also bins of other grades of fiber. Some of this was destined to be rug yarn.

Another bin of coarser fiber.

 When it comes time to make a batch of yarn, the various colors that make it up are put in carts in a specific proportion (think recipe) and wheeled over to this scale to be weighed. The other colors are added based on the recipe, all by weight.

Then we moved on to the picking area where the fiber is hydrated with oil and spread apart. On the day we were there, they were spinning primary colors for some of their kids' products.

  The fiber gets picked and moved to the other side where it is sprayed with oil to keep it moving in the machinery.

A very telling sign that could be at home anywhere.

 

 Moving on to carding, the fiber is carded in a series of rollers. Some rollers pick up the fiber and others strip it off other rollers.

 Fine adjustments determine how much fiber gets moved onto the rollers.

 Here is a view of the rollers at work.

 Cages protect us from the machinery. This is the second set of carding rollers.

Carding goes on for a long time in terms of space in the mill. Just as we spinners card fiber multiple times, there are multiple sets of rollers that card the fibers in the mill.

 The carded fiber comes down in fragile sheets after the rollers.

Eventually, it is divided into strips of roving that are wrapped around spools.

  Next we moved on to spinning. Green roving was being spun. The next two pictures are of the same spinning machine. It was just too high to take in one photo. The spool of roving is in the top of the first picture.

 The yarn gets spun and then wrapped around cones.

 Here is Nick holding a cone of spun yarn. These are singles. Nick was our guide at the mill.

 Cones are then plied together to create the final yarn.

 The plying machines are in the background along with bins of yarn in the process of being processed.

 After plying, the hand-knitting yarn is made into hanks. This is a pretty cool machine that makes hanks of a specific length.

 

 Weaving yarns are coned. This is the coning machine.

 The skeins are washed to set the twist and then hung here to dry. Fans keep the air moving to dry them quickly.

Another really cool machine was the one that twisted the hanks into the skeins we know and love. A really proficient operator makes it look easy.

 Lastly the boxes of yarn go up a conveyor belt to storage in the attic if they aren't being shipped out right away.

I hope you enjoyed this virtual tour of the mill. I was fascinated by the fact that the same steps we take as hand-spinners are being carried out by these machines. Fiber is teased or picked, carded, spun, plied and then washed to set the twist. The scale is just different.

A most educational week

I came home yesterday after the most amazing week away. It was exhausting, mind-blowing and productive. While I can't repeat it too often, it would be wonderful to do it again some time.

I went to 5 days of spinning classes with Maggie Casey. Maggie is co-owner of Shuttles, Spindles and Skeins in Boulder CO. But to the spinning world, she is a guru. But I should start at the beginning, a very good place to start.

Last Sunday, I packed up my car and headed out to Harrisville NH. I had never been there before so it was quite the adventure. I was the first to arrive at the historic Cheshire Mills Boarding House, where a number of us were staying.

Harrisville is a lovely place. It is on the National Registry of Historic places. Being a mill town, of course there was water.

 This view looks the other way from the same place. The small building straight ahead is where we spent our time. This is the location of the Harrisville Designs Knitting and Weaving Center, where our class was.

The boarding house was spartan, but clean and relatively comfortable. This is a view of the living room where people spent their evenings. I tended to stay in the studio and spin all evening.

 A view from the dining room looking into the living room.

 We had a fully furnished kitchen. It was a bit dark but quite sufficient.

 Note the dormers. I didn't. Or at least I did, but I didn't internalize their locations enough to avoid hitting my head on them frequently. The most common ones that contacted my head were the one over the trash can in the kitchen. The microwave was also under the same dormer so it had quite a few opportunities to whack me over the head.

 We had to carry our stuff up 2 flights of stairs. This is looking down from the living room window. I wish I had known that. I would have packed two smaller bags rather than one large one. Live and learn. It was good exercise though.

This was my bedroom. Note the dormer over the fan. That was the one that made the second most contact with my head. I started out with a room to myself but ended up sharing it. The boarding house was very hot when we arrived but it cooled off with the large number of fans scattered around the place. However, later in the week, when it was very humid. the air-conditioning units were just not enough to do much.

 

This was my bed. We brought our own linens. I also brought my own pillows as I wanted to make sure I was comfy. It didn't help. I didn't sleep well all week. But it was worth it.

 Our class room had a whole wall of Harrisville Shetland fiber on cones. This was for weaving classes, not us, but I couldn't resist taking a picture of the wall. Each color is labeled.

 This is a view of the classroom standing by the wall of cones and looking the other way. You can see Maggie in the front in a blue shirt. My spot is the empty chair to the right of the photo. You can see my Tina in front of the chair.

We started off spending a couple of days with this Lincoln-Corriedale fleece. We grew to know and love it as we learned about its characteristics and processed it. Maggie started off by explaining how she washes fleece in her bathtub using Dawn, hot water and a few laundry baskets.

 The locks were from a spinner's flock and had very little vegetable matter, although it was amazing how much we found as we worked on the wool.

 A close-up of the locks showing the crimp and length. Note the sun-burned tips. They ended up blending with the rest of the fiber to add depth to the color.

Each of us grabbed a section of locks and teased them. Here is a section I worked on.

 After teasing, it became a cloud of fiber. Our chairs were covered in bits of vegetable matter.

After teasing, we carded the fiber and made rolags. This was a new experience for me. I had never carded wool before, let alone made rolags. As the day wore on, the carding and the rolags got better and better.

 At first there is one.

 And then there are more. You can see how varied the colors of the fleece were. Maggie is the Queen of woolen spinning, especially the long draw method of drafting. So I was excited that we were going to spin woolen right away. We practiced the drafting and made a ply-back sample. Here is mine.

 We repeated the process (except for the ply-back sample) over and over again. Here is a bobbin with singles. Maggie wanted us to spin 2 bobbins on day 1 so we could ply it on the second day. Or maybe it took us 2 days to spin the singles. I can't remember. It is all a blur. In any case, I spun 2 bobbins of the singles.

 

 I plied the two singles to make a skein. This is not yet finished to set the twist. I have to reskein it as I made a mistake in skeining and I would rather fix it now than later.

 I spun another bobbin that I have not plied yet. So I will definitely get another skein of this fiber. Later in the week, we learned how to use a drum carder. I took more of the fleece and made a batt with it. I brought the batt back as I didn't have time to spin it in class. The batt will become the second single for the second skein. 

There should be enough for me to make a hat and mitts out of the yarn. It isn't next-to-skin-soft but it isn't harsh either. 

So there it is. My first carded and spun yarn!

In the next few posts, I will describe more of the class and also our tour of the Harrisville Designs spinning mill. Stay tuned....