Our mill offers the following services:

1. We process wool from our own flock of Cotswold, Finn, Blue-Faced Leicester, Border Leicester, and Clun Forest Sheep into roving and batts – both natural and dyed. Because we breed for colour, we offer a wide selection of natural white and coloured products. We also offer kits and courses for knitting, rug hooking, felting, processing and dyeing wool. Our products are available in our online and on-farm shops.
2. We purchase wool from local producers at a fair price, and process it into roving and batts – natural and dyed – and kits, all available in our online and on-farm shops.
3. We offer a small custom processing service. At this time, this is not a main focus of the mill and is done on an individual basis. You can contact us for a discussion of your needs.

Preparing Your Fibre and Price List

Thank you for exploring St. Mary Meade Farm & Wool Mill for your fibre processing needs! We aim to make your experience a lovely one as we navigate your fibre journey together. Reach out to us through our website contact form to start a discussion of your fibre needs.

Preparing Your Fibre for the Mill

Our dear colleagues, Donna and Robert Rodger of Rodger Family Farm & Fiber Mill (Oregon, USA), have a saying, “Don’t get greedy. Dump the seedy!” Every time I skirt a fleece, I hear that ringing in my brain!

Here are a few guidelines for the immediate, quick skirting that you can do on shearing day and then some additional guidelines for preparing your wool for the mill.

Step One: Skirting on Shearing Day

Skirting: On shearing day, focus on taking the poo, urine-stained wool, and sections of the fleece very heavy with hay (usually the back). So, your focus is really on the back and back end. If you have time and can get to Step Two on shearing day, even better. But often time is constrained and more thorough skirting happens shortly after. All the bits from Step One are perfect for the garden – very valuable for adding slow-release nitrogen to your soil.

Skirting table: People are very ingenious when building skirting tables, using everything from screen doors to chicken wire pinched in a wood frame. It doesn’t have to be fancy – it just needs to be big enough (e.g., 3’ x 5’) to allow you to lay out the fleece (cut side down, curls up) and have holes to permit the bits to fall through.

Packing your fleece: Once skirted, fold the sides of the fleece toward the centre and roll up, starting with the back end and rolling toward the head. You can store the rolled fleece in open, clear plastic garbage bags as singles or as multiples in burlap sacs or wool totes.

Step Two: Preparing Your Fibre for the Mill

When getting ready to take your fibre to the mill, the focus is on separating out the parts of the fleece that have low VM – best for roving, batts, and yarn – from parts with moderate and high VM. What helps me to skirt a fleece well is knowing that there are uses for all parts of the fleece. Fibre that has too much vegetable matter (VM) – bits of hay and other parts of the breakfast buffet – can be used for other things! So, I sort my wool from a single fleece into low VM, moderate VM. and high VM. I also remove dark, greasy tags at this point.

Here are some recommendations for how to use all parts of your wool:

Low VM: roving, batts, yarn, felting

Moderate VM: roving, batts, yarn IF the bits are large enough to be extracted easily by hand. Dryer balls or felting projects IF the bits are fine and difficult to extract by hand.

High VM: Garden mulch; stuffing for dog beds.

Transporting Your Fibre to the Mill

Drop off

You can drop off your wool at the mill at 57130 Range Road 83, Mayerthorpe, AB. Please contact us to make an appointment through our contact form.

Shipping

You can mail your fibre to:

St. Mary Meade Farm Wool Mill

57130 Range Road 83

Box 1655 (**must include the box number)

Mayerthorpe, AB

T0E 1N0

*You are responsible for postage and handling of shipping your wool to the mill as well as the mailing of the final product back to you.

Price List

**all processes are based on incoming weight

Deposit $10/lb

Scouring $15/lb + GST

Roving (Washing and Carding) – Staple length 5 inches or less: $20/lb + GST

Roving (Washing and Carding) – Staple length greater than 5 inches up to 11 inches and exotic fibres (mohair, alpaca): $22/lb + GST

Batting (Washing and Carding) – Staple length 5 inches or less: $20/lb + GST

Batting (Washing and Carding) – Staple length greater than 5 inches up to 11 inches and exotic fibres (mohair, alpaca): 22/lb + GST

*Felting (available October 2025) TBD

Please note: We require a 10$/lb deposit on all orders at the time fibre is received at the mill.

General notes:

· Long Wool: We process long wool! Because we shepherd over 160 long wool sheep, it was a priority for us to be able to mill long wool. However, it does take longer and so we charge a little extra for its custom processing. While we have processed greater than 11 inch staples before, it requires that much more care and wouldn’t be economically feasible for you! We recommend that you turn your extra-long fleeces (more than 11 inches) into something extra special (e.g., felted rug, locks).

· Scouring: We use Unicorn products to scour our wool.

· Minimums: There are no minimum quantities for processing wool at SMMF Mill.

· Dual-coats: We do not have the ability to separate out dual coated fleeces and therefore dual fibre fleeces will be processed together.

· Vegetable matter bits: All wool products have vegetable matter (VM)! We aim to reduce the VM in the final product with our pre-wash mill skirting, but we don’t have time to manage high-VM fleeces. Fleeces that are high in VM will have above average vegetable matter in the final product because we do not use chemicals that dissolve these bits in the wool. We recommend that you skirt your fleeces thoroughly before bringing them to the mill for processing (See – Preparing Your Fibre for the Mill).