Sunday afternoon our family took an outing to visit an old wool mill up in Ulverton. It was neat to hear of how the old mill was used in the past, fell into disrepair, and was recently restored – including bringing back in machinery that was used in the time period.
The shredder loosens tangles in the wool before it goes through the carder. Most of the machinery was up and running except for this one which still needed some work on the adjustments. When it is fixed, it will spin the carded and drafted wool. A “dévidoir” for unwinding spools of thread into skeins. An old hand-loom. It takes a lot of time to set it all up! And here is the machine that lines up all the threads to go on the loom. They had a more modern machine (from the 1950’s) that made socks in long tubes. One just had to cut them apart and sew up the toes!
Outdoors they had a few sheep just as “looking sheep.” They don’t actually harvest the wool from them. The covered bridge leading to the mill was burnt down the day after it was restored. So they built it again: the only covered bridge in Quebec to have a sprinkle system in it!There were also some paths where people could walk around and enjoy the outdoors. And while we were there, we took a quick family photo!