MM Fiber Mill

Spring 2024

In the spirng of 2024, I had the oppurtunity to work with a close friend of mine, Olivia, at MM Fiber Mill, a mini-mill in New Lancaster, KS. This mill is owned and operated by Roger and Penny Minniear. At the mill, we took local fleece through the whole process of spinning yarn: washing, drying, picking, dehairing, carding, plying, spinning and yarn finishing. The mill was booking a year out when we started. Seeing how much of a need there was for places like this for small farmers was both eye opening and exciting. It felt like we got to be part of history in a sense, using these machines and practices that have been in use for generations.  

We were first introduced to MM Fiber Mill through an elective class that emphasized the importance of a local fiber community. In this class, we went on several feild trips and MM Fiber Mill was one of them. It's because of this that we had the chance to work there the following semester. It was also in this elective that we were given 500lbs of unprocessed alpaca fleece from a farm in Kansas. So, as part of our work at the mill, we got to go through the process of turning one of the fleeces into yarn!