If You're Sending Wool

Skirted or not?  Do Not Send Unskirted Fiber. Skirting is the single biggest thing you can do to save yourself money on processing. All of that VM and crap, literally, weigh a lot. If you remove it, you are not paying for it in incoming weight. 

What should I remove? If you don't want it next to your skin, take it out. If you can't pull the locks apart with your own hands due to felting, I CAN'T EITHER. Don't send felted wool, even if it's freshly shorn off of the sheep.

Again, It is in your best interest financially to skirt your wool.  Skirting is the process of removing all of the largest vegetable matter (VM), tags, which include grease and poop tags, burrs, wood shavings, sticks, etc from the wool.  You are paying on incoming weight, so you are essentially paying for what is tossed in the compost.  Skirting takes up much of my valuable time and I have to charge for that service. 

The best time to skirt your fleeces is right at shearing. If you don't have a skirting table, here's a great link to show you how to make one out of PVC. We made one and this is what I use. Toss the entire fleece onto the table and pick out any heavy VM, dung tags and other icky bits. Remove large pieces of vm, burs, rose bush branches, etc. Again, anything you don't want next to your skin. The carders do an amazing job of removing small vm. 

Once you skirt a fleece, put it in a designated bag. Now is also the time to sort. Black plastic bags are perfect. If you want each fleece processed separately, put each fleece in a bag. If you want to combine fleeces, now is the time to combine. Maximize space in one bag. It saves a lot of work on weighing in too. Labels inside and out are best. Name and pertinent info including what you want made from that bag of wool. 

My skirting fee is $8/lb, again that is incoming weight.  This raises your price per lb for wash/pick/card from $15 to $23.

It is necessary to do this since it takes time away from other mill duties.  I'd rather be carding your wool or making your yarn than picking poop balls from it.   You will receive a skirting invoice, which requires your signature and agreement after delivery of your wool, if I deem it necessary to skirt here at the mill.  

Please include your full name and address plus your phone number and email address inside the shipping box.  Label each bag separately with specific instructions for the product you would like to have made, unless it is all to be combined. Including the breed type is very helpful for us here as well.  If you'd like yarn made, a sample of 10 to 20 yards is also very helpful.  

We do have a 10 lb min spin. That means 15-20 lbs of raw wool. 

Please read over the policies and procedures page as well.  

Ship to:

The Wool Mill

5477 Swamp Rd

Belgrade, MT  59714