Hudson Valley Sheep and Wool Company

I had a lot of fun checking out the Hudson Valley Sheep and Wool Company in Redhook. The two girls who were there working seemed to be having a great time.







Mickey "hid" behind an armful of the cleaned wool. She said that's her favorite pose - LOL! (Of course, some of the "fluff" fell to the floor and had to be picked up again - creating more work for the two of them, but she had fun "posing" anyway")



I took several photos of the various machines used in the fiber processing process, as well as photos of the various bags cleaned wool, drying wool, and bags of finished rovings.

Here, you can see some recently dyed yarn drying. Love the colors! There's LOTS of nice clean wool laying out there as well. Yummmmmm!












Phyll is feeding cleaned wool into the picker. It then comes out the other side (behind the plastic).








Next, wool would go through the "de-hairer" (if needed) on the left and then into the carder (right). Today, they were just putting wool through the flicker, so I didn't get any action shots of the other equipment.













The next process would be to draft the wool if necessary. This machine will stretch and draft the wool (left). After that, it's ready to go to the spinner (right). It's currently setup to make some 2-ply yarn.












Finally, this is the "skeiner" used to make skeins for sale or for dyeing. Whew! It's a long process!




As I look around the room, I see LOTS of unwashed wool and washed wool...ready for their next process - these girls DEFINITELY keep busy!













Of course, I had the obligatory "sheepie" pictures as well! After all, this is a farm - full of lots of Icelandic and Shetland Sheep.



















I bought several skeins of yarn Icelandic Yarn, Shetland Yarn, and Shetland Lace all in natural colors. I also got two skeins of very gorgeous deep green and blue hand dyed yarn. All the wool is from the Shetland and Icelandic sheep that they raise there at the farm. My plans for this wool include a few pairs of mittens and a lace shawl. Obviously, I STILL believe that I'll eventually get around to all of the projects that I have in my queue! LOL!