Support Fibre Arts Shed’s Mini Mill on the NSW Central Coast

Welcome to Fibre Arts Shed! We are reaching out to ask for your help as we set up a new-to-us mini-mill in our shed at Jilliby NSW. This new line of equipment will enable us to process Aussie-grown wool and alpaca fibre straight from the farm and manufacture beautiful yarn for knitting, crocheting, weaving and other craft projects. This means that we will be able to keep more wool and alpaca in Australia, rather than needing to ship it overseas for processing. It also means that we will be able to work with local wool growers and alpaca breeders to create a product that is 100% traceable and 100% Australian. We hope you will join us on this fantastic journey!

We are a small, family-owned business on the NSW Central Coast Hinterland that specialises in selling raw materials and tools to fibre artists. We also operate a small wool and alpaca fibre carding service. Clare runs the day-to-day and Paul helps out with fibre processing and all things computer and technology-related. We invite you to learn more about us, what we value and why we love what we do by watching this short video on our YouTube channel.

In addition to a small retail space and an online shop, we offer a wool and alpaca fibre processing service that creates a product called roving that is suitable for handspinning or felting. We also have developed a range of locally-grown roving called that we are espcially proud of called our FAST Fibre collection. Working closely with local Central Coast and NSW wool growers and alpaca breeders, these fibres are fully-traceable to the farm, and in some cases to the individual animal. We process, mill and dye these fibres in our shed at Jilliby in the Central Coast hinterland. This collection of roving has been very popular among spinners and felters.

We are excited to now have the opportunity to take this process one step further and create a high-quality machine-spun yarn.

One of the things we value very highly at Fibre Arts Shed is community. We donate a portion of the proceeds of our FAST Fibre program to Yerin, a Central Coast-based not-for-profit organisation that provides healthcare and other services to Indiginous Australians and Torres Strait Islanders in our community. We work with local schools to help children learn about fibre arts and where wool comes from. We are conscious of minimising the environmental impact our products and processes have on the environment. Now, we are calling on our community to help us set up our new Mini Mill. We have secured financing for seven pieces of equipment that will double our production and provide us with the manufacturing capabilities to turn Australian-grown wool and alpaca fibre into yarn. This means we will be able to produce our own line of traceable yarn as well as offer spinning as part of our fibre processing services.

We need your help to get the mill set up in our Shed. The money raised in this crowdfunding campaign will be used to help us pay for the logistical costs in setting up this mini mill. This includes freight, expanding our shed and new electrical work. Any additional funds raised will be used towards upgrading our fibre washing process to make it more effcient.

We are offering a range of contribution levels for our project. These contributions will all be rewarded with undyed DK/8-ply yarn (either wool or alpaca) that will be 100% processed by us in our shed, on our new equipment and will be fully-traceable. These rewards will be shipped free of charge to any address in Australia..

Perhaps you aren’t a “yarny” person? Or maybe you don’t need any more yarn in your stash? Or you live overseas and so we can’t ship the reward to you? No worries – you can still support our crowdfunding campaign with our “pay the yarn forward” initiative. We have partnered with the humanitarian organisation Aussies Knitting for War Affected Kids (AKWAK) to have your yarn reward “paid forward” to volunteer knitters and crocheters who make warm and beautiful items for children displaced by war.

Thank you so much for your support! If you have any questions or want to reach out, please feel free to contact us. We wish you hours of joyful creativity!