Spinderella's Fiber Mill
This is Meriwether's Home - an old building older than she is, which makes her feel young! Our home was build in 1903, and this original building housed the horses and the horseless carriage.1640 South 600 East * Salt Lake City~ UT * 84105 * 801.668.0563
So I sent my fibers, now what?
- The 1st thing we do is to put a tag on the outside of the box with the date of its arrival.
- Lynn will either e-mail or call you to let you know your fibers are here safely so you can relax, knowing the have arrived and in house.
- Depending on what needs to be done, we sort the boxes for Carding only, Washing and Carding, and of course Washing, carding and Spinning.
When its your turn
Lynn takes each bag out of the boxes and weighs them for washing weight. Each bag is written on with that information, as well as your order form. This stays with the fleece through the whole process. They are hand washed in lots of no more than 5 pounds, and placed on the drying racks with heaters and fans in the winter or outside racks in the summer time. It may take up to 2 days to dry your fibers.
Next stop is a visit with Ms. Meriwether. She is our 1932 circa mill carder. She is 48" wide, but we only use about 1/3 - 1/2 of her at a time. This creates a thinner roving.
She can really work! There are a few older movies that you can watch- these were taken before we did more work on her. We slowed down the motor and also had a new feeding table made. All of these changes helps get a better end product for you.
Jim stand on the front end of the machine and weights carefully all the fibers to be put onto the table. This varies based on fiber types, but generally between 2-4 ounces per table.
Lynn sits on the other end and hand rolls the roving into those flat roving balls many of you have come to know so well.
After Carding
We package and weigh your roving in plastic tube bags and ready them for shipping home to you.
But often, your roving is sent to the draw frame to be drawn- or attenuated into a thinner and more aligned roving for spinning. This is our drawn frame. 
After the fiber has been through the draw frame several times, it is taken in blue drums to the rear of the spinning frame. Her name is Gert.
After Jim makes adjustments for twist, length, and diameter of the yarn, the fiber will spin for several hours - plying takes more time. Being that Gert only has 4 spindles, this takes more time to finish the yarn. We hope to add a sister to Gert in the future, with more spindles, but until that happens we are happy with her and she works very hard for us - the end result is some wonderful yarns!