The summer season is a wonderful time at the mill - the prairie is beautiful, the gardens are full of blossoms and bees and birds, and there is FUN STUFF HAPPENING!
To kick things off, we are once again offering guided tours every Friday at 2pm from the beginning of May through to the end of September. We are also offering guided tours on the following Saturdays when we have special open hours from 12pm to 4pm: May 25th, June 22nd, July 27th, August 17th, and September 28th. Tours are offered as "pay-what-you-choose" with the 2019 proceeds going toward the continued development of our natural dye gardens. If you've always wanted to come see the mill in person, the guided tour is a great opportunity to have someone walk you through how wool processing happens, the history of the machines at the mill, and our natural dye gardens.
Many of our Open Saturdays this year line up with some fun additional events at the mill and in the area:
On June 22nd, in addition to our daytime hours and tours, we will be hosting Slow Food Calgary for a wonderful evening event celebrating local food and textile economies - it will feature an amazing dinner by Chef Jason Barton-Browne, live music by Amy Bishop, an intro to bee-keeping by ABC Bees, and wool fibre crafts. You can purchase tickets to this event here.
On July 27th, your can join food tour host Wendy Lees on a bus tour from Calgary to Dancing Goats Farm, where they make delicious goat cheeses, and to here at the mill for a prepared picnic and tour. You can find more details about this day trip and purchase tickets through eventbrite.
August 17th we're participating in Alberta Open Farm Days. Through their website you can plan a route to visit the mill as well as different host farms in the area, learning about how the food you eat and the wool you wear are grown and the fine folks who grow them. In addition to the guided tours that we'll be providing here at the mill, we'll have a market booth at Horseshoe Canyon for the Growing Kneehill Country Market and Long Table Dinner. Horseshoe Canyon is an exceptionally beautiful prairie badlands valley, with hiking trails and stunning scenery to take in - we highly recommend it!
Then, to wrap things up in September, we're having our 2019 Fibre Artist Millstay Exhibit on the 28th. What's a Fibre Artist Millstay you say? It's a special artist residency we run here at the mill each summer, highlighting the beautiful art that the wool we produce becomes. This year we are hosting tapestry artist Rina Matsumura, a Calgary based artist whose dual career as a mental health nurse and nurse therapist informs and inspires her artistic practice - AvelaneWallArt: woven wall art for mental health awareness. Rina will be joining us for studio days starting in June, so keep your eyes and ears open for workshops and other opportunities to become acquainted with her work!
Of course, the fun isn't only happening at the mill; throughout the summer you'll be able to find us out and about all over the place! We'll be at Olds College Fibre Week with a market booth July 5 - 8. Then we're in Humbolt, Saskatchewan for the All Canada Sheep Classic July 19th to 21st. Also, we'll be at the Carstairs Museum with kid's wool crafts for Beef and Barley Days on July 20th. Next, we're at the aforementioned Country Market at Horseshoe Canyon August 17th. And, finally, this year we're making the big trip out to Vancouver for Knit City!!
We'll let you know as more formalized details are available for each event. We hope you'll join us this year for some of these fun times - the Alberta landscape makes for a wonderful country drive out to the mill!