Bendigo Woollen Mills Factory Tour

Earlier this year I had a little teaser posted on my Facebook page that I was one of the very lucky people to have a factory tour of Bendigo Woollen Mills. As we are now only a couple of weeks out from the Wool and Sheep Show, and many of you will be visiting the Wool Mill, I thought you might like to see some of the behind the scenes shots!

Processed Fibre

When the fibre is processed, it comes to the Bendigo Woollen Mills in these GIANT green bales. You can see the yummy fibre in the bin on the front left. So. Much. Fibre!!! How much do you want to roll around in all of the soft fibre

Processed Fibre at the Bendigo Woollen Mills waiting to be spun and dyed

The Gilling Machine

To ensure the fibre is all going in the same direction, it is processed through the gilling machine. You can really see this when the fibre needs to be blended with another colour (e.g. Rustic), the fibre will first be dyed (more on that later) and blended, before being run through the Gilling Machine. Due to having multiple colours, the fibres must first be combined before spinning can occur. A gilling machine runs the sliver of fibre through so that all of the fibres run parallel to each other, ensuring a smooth spin.

In the photo below you can see the fibre running through the machine (from the back) and turning into an ice-cream swirl of fibre (in the orange bin at the front), similar to the white bin on the right.

Blended fibre running through the gilling machine at the Bendigo Woollen Mills

Becoming Singles

Once the fibre has been blended (if needed) it is then run through a machine which turns it into singles. The image below shows the sliver at the top of the machine being run through various rollers to become much thinner, twisted singles (in the middle) and finally being wound at the bottom of the image. If you are interested in seeing this in action, I have also placed a video below the image.

Singles being spun at the Bendigo Woollen Mills

Combining the singles

The next step of the process is to combine the singles together, which you can see below. In this part of the process the singles are joined together from smaller cones to much larger cones, ready to be plied.

Plying the singles

The next step of the process is to ply the singles together, which you can see happening in the image below. if you are spinner you will already understand how this works. The singles which were spun in the previous steps are spun again with other singles, but this time in the opposite direction. This makes the yarn stronger and thicker.

Singles being plied

Dyeing the yarn

This is the fun part!! (well, it was all lots of fun really!) When the yarn is dyed, it is put into a vat. The image below is for one of the larger vats. The yarn 'skeined' up, has plastic ties placed around it and is then placed onto a rod. These rods of yarn are placed into the vat.

Yarn in a vat, ready to be dyed

The doors are then closed and the dyeing can commence.

A smaller vat, this shows the doors and how the handles lock it all into place

If the mill is dyeing a smaller batch of yarn or fibre, the smaller vat below is usually used.

A smaller vat used to dye smaller amounts of yarn or fibre

The Hydro Extractor

Once the dyeing has concluded, the doors are opened up, and the yarn moved to the hydro extractor (which looks just like a giant washing machine) where it is put on a spin cycle to get all of the excess liquid out.

The Hydro Spinner. Used like a giant washing machine on a spin cycle.

Drying

Once most of the excess moisture has been removed, the yarn is moved across to another spidery looking machine that dries the yarn. This machine moves the arms through the machine in a circular motion, blowing warm air as they progress through.

Dyed yarn being dried.

The yarn is hung again, waiting to be balled up.

All of the pretty colours!

Balling up

The final step is to get the wool all balled up and ready to be knit!! The yarn is actually strung up and over, but I couldn't fit it all into the image below. You can see the string of yarn across the top of the machine. This is fed down into the machine as it is wound into a ball shape. The machine lifts the finished balls up and they roll down to where a worker places the label into them, boxes them up and takes them to the shop.

Yarn being balled up!!

I found this process so mesmerising, that I took a little video for you guys too! My favourite part is at 0:15 where the ball 'puffs' at the end!!

So there you have it! This is how your Bendigo Woollen Mills balls get made! I really hope you enjoyed seeing and reading about my little tour. It was so fascinating and lovely to see. I am very fortunate to have been able to do this tour, as it is not available to the public, but one of my very dear, and best friends works at the Mill and she was able to make it happen.

Thank you to Bendigo Woollen Mills for allowing me to do a tour and take photos to share with everyone!

Competition: Bendigo Woollen Mills is offering the chance for you and a friend to win a tour of the Wool Mill too!! You can find all of the information in their Facebook post here.

Bendigo Sheep & Wool Show

Once again, the wool mill shop will be open over the Sheep and Wool show weekend (17-19 July 2015). If you would like to avoid the crowds of people, I would suggest going during the week prior to the show weekend, as even on the Thursday it is quite hectic. The shop is located at 4 Lansell Street, Bendigo VIC and will be open:

Friday 17th July: 9am - 5pm

Saturday 18th July: 10am - 3pm

Sunday 19th July: 10am - 3pm

If you would like to find out more information on the Bendigo Sheep & Wool Show, please see my previous posts here and here. (links coming soon)