Belfast Mini Mills Field Trip

The Belfast Mini Mills is a wonderful and interesting destination on Prince Edward Island. This family-run business manufactures small scale fiber spinning equipment, processes, and sells wool. 

We joined the Down East homeschool group for a field trip. We were shown and explained the process involved during an educational tour. You can see a very clear flow chart of the process here. One machine in particular was processing fiber from dog, Samoyed, that day. It was fascinating to see all the machines involved and to know that they designed and built these machines too. Their machines are used all over the world! 

Unprocessed wool

Machines processing fiber, and a washing machine 

Wool from Samoyed being processed, felt, colourful wool drying,
and making a wool necklace with an air gun

Wool on drying racks

There is a mill store as well that sells beautiful yarn and more. I haven't taken up knitting or I am sure I would have been spending a lot more time in that store! 

A rainbow of colourful wool ~  beautiful hand knitted hats by our friend Simone!

After the tour, everyone was shown a short demonstration of felting with an invitation to try it out. 

There were sheep, goats, chickens, a lama and a gorgeous white peacock as well as a couple of friendly dogs too. 

Sheep and a friendly lama

The majestic white peacock

He was gorgeous and I think he knew it too! 

It was a lovely country spot to get together with our homeschool friends, to learn something new and have fun at the same time! 

You can read more about the Belfast Mini Mills on their website or at this Guardian article.