Your fleece will go through some or all of these, depending on the final product you have chosen.
Scouring is the hot washing of fibre. After it has been spun to remove as much water as possible the fleece will be air dried.
The fleece is then passed through a fibre separator which opens up the fibres.
The product at this stage is suitable for hand spinning or felting.
Carding is a mechanical process that disentangles and intermixes fibres to produce a continuous web, a rectangle of which can be loosely rolled to form a batt or extruded to form a continuous “sausage” of fibre known as roving.
Any blending of fibres starts at this point.
The product at this stage is suitable for hand spinning or felting.
Roving produced by the carder goes through the draw frame to even it out and blend the fibres together. The thickness of the roving is reduced in preparation for spinning.
The prepared fibre is spun to produce thread. The threads are then plied to produce the desired weight (thickness) of yarn.
The finished yarn will be wound into approximately 100g skeins and tied in two locations to prevent unwinding. The skeins will be twisted for shipping. By arrangement yarn can be made into different sized skeins and/or tied for dyeing.
Based on incoming weight of fibre, weighed to the nearest 100g, to be weighed by Shire Mill on delivery.
Minimum batch weight for processing is 1kg. Amounts smaller than this will be charged at 1kg if accepted. Maximum weight currently accepted for a single batch is 15kg, if you have more than this please contact us to discuss processing. Part kilos are accepted.
Prices correct at 20 January 2024 and may be subject to change. All prices include VAT.
Fleece should be delivered to us by prior arrangement in clean sealed identifiable bags. Please attach a fibre processing order form to each individual bag. It is recommended you place a second copy of the form inside each bag.
Fleeces may be delivered by carrier or personally (by prior appointment).
Fleece must be clean, dry and free from moth infestation, faeces, large amounts of straw/vegetation, felting, or foreign matter. Where cleaning and grading of fleece has not been completed by the customer a charge of £25.00 per hour will be levied for carrying out this process.
Fibre
sent to us must be in a “treated” state according to the ADHB definition (please see here), we recommend using the storage method.
Fleeces heavily contaminated with vegetative matter will incur an additional machine cleaning charge of £25 per hour.
Fleeces must not have been treated with any insecticides (Click, Crovect etc) within three months of shearing.
Fleeces subject to moth infestation will be destroyed.
Our machines will not spin fibres under 5 cm / 2” or over 18 cm / 7”.
We reserve the right to refuse any fleece which we feel is of unsuitable quality.
The cost of processing is based on the incoming weight of fibre, before any processing has taken place. We will confirm this to you before processing begins. Please note weight loss of around 40-50% will occur during processing, this may be higher if your fleece has a lot of vegetative matter, lanolin or inconsistent fibres.
The minimum amount per batch is 1kg. Quantities below this may be accepted but will be charged at the 1kg rate.
Please note listed prices may be subject to change, rates will be confirmed when your fleece is booked in for processing.
A 25% deposit will be required before processing begins.
When the nature of the fleece prevents us from producing the product requested by the customer we reserve the right to charge on a pro-rata basis for the processes completed.
On completion of processing an invoice will be supplied and payment must be cleared before goods are dispatched. All invoices must be paid within 14 days. Completed orders may be collected in person (by prior appointment) or sent by carrier at the customer’s expense.
Any order not collected within six weeks without prior arrangement will be forfeit. Payment may be made by cheque or bank transfer. Payment must be made prior to collection of, or dispatch of, goods.
We do not accept any processing orders from outside the U.K.
All weights and lengths are approximate.