Welcome to Battenkill Fibers

Mill Equipment

Our semi-worsted machinery is especially good for handling short staples such as Merino and other fine wools, alpaca, and other slippery fibers including mohair and long-wools. We make even traditionally scratchy fibers feel luxurious next to your skin. Our pin-drafting process makes yarn more uniform and aligns the fibers in the yarn so that they lie parallel to one other.

Custom Fiber Processing

By choosing to process at Battenkill Fibers, you will receive not only premium quality yarn, but a smoother, longer-wearing product. The yarn is lofty and the crimp is well-balanced, creating crisp stitch definition in knitted fabrics. At Battenkill Fibers, you always get your own fiber back, regardless of size of order. After all of your hard work caring for your animal, having it sheared properly, sorting out the best fibers, and storing and delivering your fleeces to a mill – you want to know for sure that the yarn or roving returned to you is yours and not someone else’s.

Upcoming Knitters Tours

Since 2005, Battenkill Fibers founder Mary Jeanne Packer has been designing and leading international and domestic tours for knitters and other fiber enthusiasts. Our trips are limited to about 25 participants; and last a week to 10 days. Each adventure includes several knitting and other fiber arts classes with local instructors, behind the scenes tours of textile mills, studios, and history museums, craft demonstrations, shopping, and sight-seeing through breath-taking countryside.

What We Offer

Yarn

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Roving & Needle Felting

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Batting

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Knitted Items

Gloves & Socks

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Felting Supplies

Needles & Pads

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Natural Colored Woven Blanket with Red Stripes

Woven Items

Blankets & Fabric

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Meet Mary Jeanne Packer, Battenkill Fibers Founder

Mary Jeanne Packer founded Battenkill Fibers in 2009 to provide value-added, custom carding and spinning services for fiber farms and makers; and to manufacture yarn and fiber products for wholesale and retail markets. The mill produces 100-150 lbs of artisan quality natural-colored and dyed semi-worsted yarn daily using refurbished traditional milling machinery. Since its founding, Battenkill Fibers has grown to provide 15 full-time and part-time jobs and was recognized as Washington County Small Business of the Year in 2015.

Before opening the mill, Mary Jeanne was the owner/co-owner of several local yarn stores serving hand-knitters and crochet enthusiasts. Since 2004, she has been organizing annual guided international and domestic textile tours with a focus on authentic, participatory fiber-related experiences.

Mary Jeanne is one of the founders, and president, of the farmer-owned Southern Adirondack Fiber Producers Cooperative best known for its annual wool pool which connects the region’s sheep farmers with the world market for grease wool. Mary Jeanne is a co-founder of the Hudson Valley Textile Project and serves on its board of directors as treasurer. She is also the secretary/treasurer of the Empire Sheep Producers Association and a member of the Empire Alpaca Association.

She has a bachaelors degree in engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); and a masters degree in Communications Management from Syracuse University. Mary Jeanne has served on numerous boards including Cornell Cooperative Extension Washington County, NY Farm Viability Institute, NY Ag in the Classroom, the national Forest Landowners Association, and Empire Council of Ag Organizations.

Watch Mary Jeanne’s presentation to the 2021 Handweavers Guild of America Careers in Textiles Symposium; and hear an interview on the Professional Weaver Podcast