Echoview Fiber Mill

Remember when you were a child and how much fun field trips were?  I took a day off and joined some of the members of my guild on a visit to a fiber mill in Weaverville.  Echoview Mill is an eco-friendly, living wage certified animal fiber processing mill located just north of Asheville, NC. They provide quality fiber processing from washing fiber to making yarns or felt, and anywhere in between. 

This chart describes the process, the pictures below show some of the equipment used in the mill.

Ken gave us the tour of the mill floor.  The machine behind him removes the guard hair from those fleeces requiring this step.

This is a scouring machine, the fleece travels through the trays removing the lanolin and other undesired material.

This is how the fleece looks after it goes for a bath.  You can see there is still some visible vegetable matter.

 

Beautiful fiber drying.

 

After the fleece is dried it goes into this machine to be opened up.  It had long spikes inside to pull the fiber apart.

It was interesting to see fibers blended in this machine.

 

A spinner.

 

Echoview also has a store where they sell their own yarns, roving, handcrafted jewelry, soaps and more.

 

My friend Paul took this picture.  He is eight years old and quite the photographer.

 

Paul liked this yarn and asked his mom, Sara to pose for a picture with it as well.  This was a fun day, I learned so much and always enjoy spending time with my guild members.  Thank you Echoview for allowing us to visit and thank you Chris for organizing this .