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A Local and Sustainable Yarn and Fiber Mill
Yvonne Ellsworth6 min read
A friend recently shared with me the Campaign for Wool’s video “Why Wool Matters” (see Resources), which makes a strong argument for the importance of wool in fighting global climate change. Similarly, after doing research that showed that 80 percent of people don’t know that synthetic fibers come from fossil fuels, Woolmark launched a microsite describing the benefits of wool over synthetics. These events reaffirmed for me the importance of shopping locally and learning about fiber sources as they relate to clothing. Fortunately, I live in a country with many great local wool resources available, including one in my own backyard.
When I moved from Oregon to the Seattle area, locating a local yarn store and locally produced, sustainable yarn was at the top of my list. I could not have been luckier in finding myself a short ferry ride away from Abundant Earth Fiber, a small-batch fiber mill on Whidbey Island. As owner Lydia Christiansen put it in her Long Thread Media podcast interview with Anne Merrow (see Resources), “Small-batch wool puts us in direct contact with, not just the natural material, but that narrative and those relationships [that] show us where it came from and how we as human beings are connected to this Earth.”
Lydia opened Abundant Earth Fiber in 2014. Before that, like many of us, she was a handspinner with a dream of quitting her day job and spinning full-time. Her interest in wool wasn’t in having her own sheep, but in connecting the farmers around her with the spinning, knitting, and weaving community she found herself a part of. She told her husband she wanted to open a mill. She did her research and, within a half-year of saying those words, made it happen: Lydia opened her small-batch mill. Soon after, her husband also left his job so they could run the mill together and live their dream of producing local, sustainable, small-batch yarn and fiber.
Left: Lydia Christiansen, owner of Abundant Earth Fiber. Right: Coil of roving ready to be spun into yarn. Photos by Yvonne Ellsworth
So how do you go about starting a mill? Lydia describes her acquisition of mill equipment in her blog post from October 2016 (see Resources).
“When I originally began researching milling equipment, I immediately knew I wanted salvaged industrial machines that would stand the test of time. Learning to operate and maintain them would fall entirely on my shoulders, so I had to find reliable and simple machines. Word of mouth led me to a couple from Oklahoma who were retiring their carding business. Anxiously, I flew out to meet them and to spend a day trying my hand at carding.”
It was love at first sight when she saw the carder and pin drafter for sale. With a handful of freshly carded wool in her pocket to give herself courage, Lydia left Oklahoma having made an offer for the two machines.
After that huge acquisition, Lydia thought she would grow the business slowly, with hopes of adding a spin frame sometime in the future, but fate had other ideas. Not long after purchasing the carder and pin drafter, her friend and mentor Chuck McDermott called with an offer of two spin frames from a mill that was going to scrap them. Although Lydia’s initial reaction was to turn them down, thinking she had already overwhelmed herself with the first two machines, a few sleepless nights told her she would regret that decision. “I called Chuck back, closed my eyes, and jumped. In hindsight, I can’t imagine this mill without them. They are the heart and soul of my work, and I will ever be grateful to my friend Chuck for pushing me over that cliff.”
Carder. Photo by Yvonne Ellsworth
The efforts of Lydia and her husband to lease the mill building and prepare the space intersected well with the equipment she had obtained. Only six months passed from the moment she said, “I think I need a mill” to July 26, 2014, when the public was invited to the mill’s grand opening.
Today, the mill works with small farms with only 50 to 100 sheep each to produce the raw fleece for the local wool components of their yarn. The rest of production is mixing a domestically raised and American-processed merino wool roving with their local wool to make it go a bit further. The mill processes about 300 pounds of finished, clean product a month.
I had the good fortune to meet Lydia and her family in 2019 when my family took a trip to Whidbey Island. I toured the mill in Clinton, near the ferry docks, and chatted with Lydia about local sheep, wool, and yarn. Shortly after our visit, Lydia opened a beautiful community yarn shop. The shop’s emphasis was on community and bringing together farmers and fiber artists. In her shop, Lydia provided looms for people to weave on. She had a seating area for knitters, spinners, and other portable fiber arts. There was a dye bar where you could buy her yarn and dye it right on the premises. She had all her beautiful locally sourced yarns and fibers right there to pet, sniff, and ogle. Among them you might find her sportweight Josef & Anni merino blend that includes 10% Targhee, which adds tiny, interesting flecks, or her superbulky Portland that looks like pencil roving but is lightly felted for stability.
Spin frame. Photo by Yvonne Ellsworth
In addition to her wool products, Lydia experimented and developed dyes that didn’t need dyepots and a huge cleanup afterward, perfect for the home fiber artist who wants to dye fibers without the mess. After many attempts and failures, she came up with what she calls Wool Tincture Dyes, premeasured tea bags filled with dye, proudly made in-house, that allow for simple backyard-type dyeing.
In early 2020, when everything shut down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Lydia had to make the tough decision to close her store—but she didn’t stop working on her dream of producing locally sourced, sustainable yarn. She kept on quietly working in the background of her website and on a small handful of wholesale accounts.
Superbulky Portland. Photo by Lydia Christiansen
As she followed her passion for local, sustainable wool and connecting farmers with crafters and artists, the only thing Lydia was lacking was the community she had created with her cozy yarn shop. She missed it. With that in mind, in the spring of 2022, she created an online community called the School of Wool. There, people can interact not only with her but with one another. If you are looking to learn more about local and sustainable wool, I recommend checking it out (see Resources). There are many great like-minded people there who are passionate about wool, where to find it locally no matter where you live, and what to do with it once you’ve got it.
Weaving rya using Portland. Photo by Lydia Christiansen
Carder: Turns clean locks of wool into batts or roving.
Pin drafter: Uses a series of pins to refine carded roving by blending and thinning it, resulting in a consistent thickness for smooth spinning.
Spin frame: Adds twist to roving by moving it through a series of rollers.
YVONNE ELLSWORTH is a weaver, dyer, and local wool enthusiast. She lives in Duvall, Washington.
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