Twisted Fiber Spinnery LLC is rooted in Liz’s childhood.  Both of her grandmothers had a hand in establishing her life-long love of handmade fiber items. She knits and crochets. The dream of being intimately involved with the entire fiber process from animal to finished item had been simmering within her for years.  Then Covid hit.

While the rest of the world was getting Covid cats & dogs, we got alpacas.  After shearing that first May, we discovered it would be months before we would see our fiber back as roving and yarn. We contacted different mills, and the wait time was anywhere from six to fourteen months. Talk about a reality check. Lol

·We realized, we had way too much alpaca fiber to hand process and didn’t want the LONG wait.  So, we thought, what would it take to open our own mill?  

New England had industrial sized fiber mills into the late 1970’s, maybe early 1980’s.  All that equipment was long gone and too massive for our plans.  We wanted a manageable size for one to three people to operate and could process different batch sizes starting with a single fleece. We wanted farmers to get their own fiber back.

We researched the limited number of existing mini-mill manufacturers. Ultimately deciding that Belfast Mini Mills in Prince Edward Island Canada was the best option for us. They continue to manufacture new mills and as a bonus provide outstanding support and training.

We bought our pre-loved mill from Diane, a lovely lady, from Otisfield, ME. Without Diane’s initial investment in her time and her oodles of knowledge we wouldn’t be on this journey.  Thank you, Diane!!

We hired Belfast Mini Mills to move the equipment and set it up in its new home. They also installed new rollers, fancy, longer conveyer belts and safety equipment and provided lots of training.  There is a very steep learning curve to owning & operating a mill. A heartfelt thank goes out to Jeff with Belfast Mini Mills, for his patience in answering all our questions.

Our mill includes a picker, carder, rug yarn maker, draw frame, spinner, skein winder and cone winder.  All are of Belfast Mini Mill manufacture.  This allows us to card into cloud, roving, batts and make rug yarn.  We also can spin 1, 2 & 3-ply yarn and make lopi yarn.

As of Feb 2023, we are accepting fiber!!  Yippee!!