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Come watch live sheep being hand sheared and see other steps being done that are used in making cloth at the Oliver Miller Homestead on Sunday, May 18. Children may pet young lambs and feel the just-sheared fleece.

In frontier times, clothing was a precious commodity and involved a multi-step hand process done mainly by the women of the household. The time from when raw products were obtained until a final garment was completed could be as much as one year. An important part of this process was making the cloth from wool or flax.

Throughout the site, our members will be explaining the many steps of turning the fleece into cloth. The fleece must be washed, cleaned, teased and carded before being spun into wool yard and woven into cloth on a loom. A woman will be dyeing the fleece outside in a large metal pot and drying it on racks. A display shows the various materials used for dyeing. Women will be demonstrating how yarn is spun using both spinning wheels and a drop spindle. The weaver will be at his loom continuing to make cloth for window curtains. As always, our Trading Post in the barn will be open.

The Oliver Miller Homestead is located on Stone Manse Drive, just off the circle on Corrigan Drive in South Park. It is open each Sunday from May 4th through December 7th from 1:30 until 4:30 p.m., with the last admission at 4 p.m. Admission on special event days is $2 while on non-event days an admission of $1 is requested.

For more information, visit the website at www.olivermiller.org or phone 412-835-1554.

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