March 28, 2024

Wool by the Pound

Oct. 1, 2015
Stonehedge Fiber Mill

If you watched the 2014 Winter Olympics closing ceremonies, you saw one of the products of Stonehedge Fiber Mill. The East Jordan company produced nearly 3,000 pounds of yarn for Ralph Lauren in spring 2013 to be used for the sweaters the designer created for the games.

“A woman driving down M-32 saw our signs and stopped in for a tour of the mill,” explained Deb McDermott, owner and operator of the mill along with her husband, Charles.

“I took her on the tour and then she bought exactly one skein of yarn. She said, ‘I work for a designer in New York City; maybe we could use this for something.’ And you know how it goes. You think, ‘yeah, right, okay,’” she laughed.

FAMOUS FIBER

McDermott assumed it was just polite conversation and was surprised when Ralph Lauren called requesting a color card and samples.

Ralph Lauren’s wool — all U.S. grown — originated in South Carolina. It was washed and sent to North Carolina to be dyed, then sent up to Stonehedge, where the McDermotts processed it into Stonehedge Shepherd’s Wool Worsted Weight yarn in eight colors; most of it was white, plus red, blue and the colors of the Olympic rings.

In addition to being worn by the Olympic athletes, a limited number of sweaters were sold on the Ralph Lauren website, but they sold out quickly; the McDermotts had to buy their own at $400 each.

“That was a really neat project, but also a shock when we first realized who we were talking to!” McDermott said.

YARN VENTURES

That may have been a high profile “yarn gig,” but the McDermotts are no strangers to eclectic projects involving their products.

They bought Stonehedge Farm in 1988, keeping the name it’s had for more than 100 years.

“We have a photo from 1906 of the Bohemian family that owned it, the Pefeks,” Mc- Dermott said, “which is also the name of the road the farm is on.”

The McDermotts started raising sheep a year after they moved to the farm, spurred by their kids’ interest in 4H. That led to their next venture: a petting farm.

“We had that for 11 years. We had nine breeds of sheep, horses and a llama. And to help pay the feed bill for the animals, I started hand-spinning yarn and making crafts,” she explained.

McDermott learned every step of making yarn from wool. “The sheep is shorn, the wool is washed, then it’s picked and carded — essentially brushing and detangling — via machine. Then it’s ready to use for crafts or that’s the point at which you’d spin it into yarn,” she explained.

SUPER SHEEP

To make yarn, the wool is pin-drafted (a method of aligning the fibers) and it then goes on the spinning machine, which spins a single strand.

“We take those bobbins of single-strand yarn and make it into multi-strand,” she said.

The McDermotts have 23 sheep, which she explains are basically “pet sheep” that also supply yarn.

“When we first started working with sheep, we were told they live for around nine years,” she said. “We have several that are 15–16 years old now.”

They use the yarn from their own sheep and McDermott also makes some superwash and nylon sock yarn that they sell in their shop, The Fiber Shed, on the Stonehedge grounds. They process 2,000 pounds of their own finished yarn per month, which is sold in 300 stores around the world. The remainder of their fiber processing comes from outside animals.

PROCESS PERFECTION

“We custom-process 1,500 pounds of yarn per month of other people’s fiber,” Mc- Dermott said. “People send it to us. We get sheep, alpaca, llama, goat angora, rabbit angora and one lady asked if we could spin her dog’s hair.”

They wash, card and process the fiber into yarn, but they don’t dye. They return it to the client as natural yarn that they can dye if they wish.

“We can even just turn one animal’s wool into yarn so they can use it and know it’s only from that animal or sell it, for instance, as Henrietta’s Yarn, in which Henrietta is the sheep!” The McDermotts also sell equipment to other fiber mills. Charles McDermott was a product superintendent for General Motors Bay City/Adrian before the McDermotts moved north. So when the equipment his wife was using to card wool wasn’t working well enough, he designed a new one.

“We weren’t planning on building machinery,” she said, “but now this machine, the McDermott Carding Machine, works with a very big range of different kinds of fiber, which is what I needed.”

MILL TRAVELS

The machine automates part of the yarnmaking process; it works so well that the McDermotts have contracted to have the equipment custom built.

“Not everybody wants to learn how to hand spin pounds and pounds of wool,” Mc- Dermott explained, “so this lets people keep enjoying raising their animals and getting something back from them. It’s called ‘valueadded agriculture.’” Continuing their ventures further, when other fiber mills purchase their machine, the McDermotts travel to that site to demonstrate how to use it. This approach has taken them all over the U.S., to Canada and to two even more exotic fiber mills.

“We traveled to Estonia, to Saaremaa Island in the middle of the Baltic Sea, to help a couple with sheep who wanted to start a fiber mill of their own,” she said. “We went there to teach them and stayed in an off-season campground.”

The next trip took them to Punta Arenas in southern Chile.

“That’s where the tour ships come in from Antarctica,” she said. “There’s a place there with 6,000 sheep and some alpaca. The ships dock there and they have a cookout for the people disembarking, so they wanted to make and sell their own yarn from their own sheep.”

HOMETOWN GOALS

Of course the travel is exciting, but these projects are worth more than that to the Mc- Dermotts, who are trying to do their part right from Stonehedge Fiber Mill to keep wool local.

“We like being able to go to other places and see the way they live and their traditions,” she said.

“But we don’t sell machinery just to sell machinery. People buy it because they really want to do this, so they can continue raising their animals and living their lifestyle by having their own fiber mill on the premises. Then they can process their own fiber and sell it.”

Without this approach, she explained, wool ends up in what’s called the “wool pool,” sent to China and other places for processing and production.

“This helps keep the wool in its home country,” she said. “It’s so neat when you talk to somebody who bought a machine a year ago and they’re already doing great.”

Stonehedge Fiber Mill is located at 2246 Pesek Road in East Jordan. For more information, call (231) 536-2779 or visit stonehedgefibermill.com.

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