Fiber Mill

-ALPACA - LLAMA - SHEEP - RABBIT - GOAT - AND THE OCCASIONAL DOG ! -

Our own farm Fiber Mill is a labor of love. We are a mom and pop mill that can provide a custom service to your farm or retail business. We are proud of our service and have been recieving many notifications of your yarns processed in our mill and recieving top awards at shows ! Thank you for showing us off !

Turn your fiber into profit ! Our focus is alpaca, we also process sheep wool, llama and the occasional dog !

We encourage you to communicate with us about your fiber. Our goal is to match your desire. Cottage industry fiber processing is not exact. The quality of your yarn will depend on the quality of the fiber sent to the mill. FYI, just because you send 17 micron fiber does not mean you will end up with perfect yarn. In fact, we have found the best micron of fiber for processing to a yarn with beautiful hand turns out to be 23 - 28 micron.

Pricing is simple at our mill. There are NO hidden costs. We charge for outgoing finished weight. Expect a loss in weight during processing. Processing fees include the entire process to end product. Shipping is not included however we can ship most orders USPS flat rate. Customer pick up is always welcome.

Open our Frequently Asked Questions section to get the answers to questions most frequently asked to us about fiber processing.

Using Belfast Mini Mill equipment we can process your alpaca fiber into value added products. We offer fair price, quality work and fair turn around time.

Yarn coloring service is available. We use Kushing Dyes because the color options are the best. Kushing offers dyes for natural fibers in 90+ colors and using NO harsh chemicals in the process. We feel it keeps the natural part of your fiber well... natural.

Click on the fiber form button below. Complete and send this form with each fleece.

Worthington Acres Alpacas - Farm & Fiber Mill

3358 Salem Schoolhouse Road Unityville, Pa 17774 (570) 458-6789 craig@worthingtonacresalpacas.com

$25 per pound finished weight yarn

$20 per pound finished weight needle felt fabric

$18 per pound finished weight roving and batting

$3.50 per pair FeltPAC™ shoe inserts

$10 per pound finished dye service

Payment for orders due upon completion. Orders remaining in inventory over 30 days become property of Worthington Acres Alpacas.

No minimum order requirements however we do have a $50 minimum order charge. Price is based on OUTGOING weight - your dirt is FREE !

******************Do's and Dont's*****************

DO: Take some time to prepare your fiber for processing. You should get your hands in your fiber because it is a wealth of information about your animals. Remove all large vegetable, dung tags, wire, bottle caps, empty and full bullet casings etc... trust me we find it all ! Basic skirting steps.

1. Lay your fiber cut side up. With a credit card flick across your fiber to remove the tiny second cuts. These cuts cause lumps, bumps and noils in your finished product.

2. Turn your blanket over, remove visible amounts of large vegetable matter, dung tags etc... If there are color variations and you do not want them blended, remove them also.

3. Take a random sample from around the outer edge of your fleece. Try to send as uniform of fiber as you can. Remove the edges that are not uniform and place them in a separate bag. You'll probably get enough to make a little felt if your skirting enough fleece. Save it until you do, felt is a wonderful way to eliminate waste.

4. Now gentley shake your fiber to remove excessive dirt, debris and other things you din't pick out before.

FYI. By following these simple steps you have saved yourself some $$$$$ by removing excessive dirt and debris. Why pay to ship more than you have to. Every penny counts.

DO: Pull a random sample of your fiber and hold it at the cut end and tip, pull with even pressure. Your hands are exerting about 6 pd. of pulling strength. If your fiber breaks you may have a processing problem which will create noils in your yarn. Don't panic, we can still make it into felt but, try to figure out what stressor was placed on your alpaca to cause this. There is not charge to send us a sample to be evaluated for processing.

DON'T: Send us excessively dirty or fibers that break. While we reserve the right to get your hands in every fleece prior to it going through our expensive equipment, we are not providing a skirting service for every fleece sent. The more your fiber is skirted when it arrives the faster it gets put into production. You can not hurt your fiber by overskirting it.

We can not process fiber over 5 1/2" in length. This is due to the distance of the draft zone associated with our spinning equipment. We will have to cut the fiber to a smaller length than 5 1/2" so please ensure that your fiber meets this requirement. We don't run into this problem often but when we do there is an additional cost assessed per hour for cutting the fiber to a usable length. If this happens we will notfiy you prior, no suprises please.

************ ANSWERS TO COMMON QUESTIONS*************

1. Are you kidding me, your processing fee's are from $18 - $25 per pound ? Yes. We have worked hard to keep our proceesing fees low. This helps you and us out in the end as small farms wishing to make a living from the fiber. While other mills have increased the price to as much as $40 per pound to a process, we are committed to keeping our quality high, turn around time fair and prices more than competitive.

2. Weight loss will occur during processing. No matter how much you skirt there will be dirt, debris, short cuts etc.. that the machinery will remove. Typically there is about 16 oz. - 18 oz of weight loss.

3. WE HAVE ELIMINATED THIS CLEANING FEE. CLEANING IS INCLUDED WITH THE PER POUND CHARGE.

4. We wash your fiber minimum of 2 times at the beginning and 1 time at the end if it is processed to skeins.

5. We process first come, first serve in like color lots. This means when your fiber arrives it is logged in and bin carded so we know when it arrived and what color it is. As we are doing a run of black we will process as much black as possible. This enables us to have less down time due to color contamination which saves your processing cost.

6. We do not require $$$ down prior to processing. We do require payment in full upon completion of your order, prior to shipping. Finished product remaining at the mill for over 30 days becomes the property of Worthington Acres Alpacas and we will sell it to recoup the cost of our processing service. This does not happen often but we feel you should know this up front. Our equipment and building didn't come cheap and we are making every effort to keep our processing fee's fair and pay the bill ! With that said, if your having trouble paying please let us know. We will work with you in every way possible to make your processing a pleasant experience.

FOLLOW THE MACHINES BELOW TO LEARN THE FIBER PROCESSING METHODS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR END USE PRODUCTS. THESE MACHINES ARE THE EXACT MACHINES WE USE TO PROCESS YOUR FIBER. WE DO NOT HAVE A DE-HAIRING MACHINE.