Fibre Naturally

I would never have thought when we imported our first mill equipment just under 18 years ago how big our fibre processing business would become.

When we initially started, we imported a single line of equipment to get us up and running. The first few years labouring away in our small shed was exciting as we learned the many ways natural fibre can behave and all the little quirks of the equipment. The biggest issue we discovered was the need to properly regulate the environment of our shed as sweltering summers and freezing winters played havoc with the equipment and fibre, so an air conditioner became a necessity, and not just a luxury.

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For many years the equipment served us well, but in 2018 a chance encounter led us to a warehouse full of Mini Mill equipment. Talk about a kid in a candy store! We quickly organised for a duplicate run of equipment which resulted in us trying to squeeze this all into our cosy shed. So the next step was to then expand our mill area. From the outside our fibre mill looks almost the same, but we have doubled the space for our mill, as well as putting in a proper on-farm shop and craft area for felting and for my daughter to run hand spinning and crocheting workshops.

Unfortunately, the candy store was still there and another two spinners and a dehairer were obtained. This led to stage 3 of the Mill extension, and definitely the last (for now 😊).   We now have a dedicated storeroom and work area to manage the consignment fleece that arrives on a weekly basis from across Australia for us to process, making more room in the mill itself for the latest equipment.    

My small yarn spinning business has now turned into a real family enterprise with my daughter Jamie-Lee working alongside me in the mill, and my mother, Kath, who turns 91 this year, helping where she can in the mill, and turning yarn from our own alpacas into beautiful hand knitted gloves. My other daughter Ash is very interested in holding her spinning and crocheting classes and is also responsible for dyeing our hand painted yarn. My husband Robert has recently semi-retired, so we now can start training him as a new member of staff.

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This will hopefully allow us to process and promote more of our own yarn that we sell under our Alpaca Allure label. These alpaca fleeces we process have been personally selected for quality, micron, length etc from our own alpacas or sourced directly from a few very select alpaca farms. We are very proud that we are the only mill producing products and yarn that is licenced by the Australian Fibre Collective guaranteeing they are truly 100% grown and manufactured in Australia.