Weekend Playing with Natural Fibers

This past weekend I continued along with my play with fibers hobby… hmm… I am not sure that sounds right.  You may not be able to tell from this post’s feature picture what kind of fibers I messed around with…

YES… IT IS RABBIT FUR! (Angora).

I played with two different colors of angora fur: Beige and Gray!  I bought almost 3 pounds of the fur from Etsy and for those who are concerned about the rabbits I was promised that it was “Humanly Harvested”.  (This should mean no PETA protests of this blog)

Here is the beige fur carded, spun, and washed.   I wish I had a way to let you all feel how soft this yarn is.  Is it wrong to want to knit me some underwear out of this?

I took this to work… hoping it would dispel all the “he makes human hair yarn” gossip. (see Weekend with Whair)   As you may have guessed… when I showed it to others the first question out of their mouths before they would touch it was “is it hair?”.   When they finally trusted my “no it is not” they touched and immediately said “wow it is really soft”.  I mentioned to one of my co-workers that if my wife was that soft I would cuddle with her much more often and lots longer…   this was not an exaggeration.

Here is the gray fur.  With this angora I fortunately didn’t have much “skirting” to do (Skirting is a fancy word for picking poo and vegetation out of the fur)  I carded the angora as I did with wool and created very soft rolags. (See below)

I only spun the beige…will spin the gray later.   After spinning I washed the newly formed yarn very carefully.  I followed the same process I have used when washing all of the other natural fibers.  (see Weekend with a Inky Dinky Do… an Alpaca)   This washing was a must since the fibers smelt… well a lot like rabbit.  The yarn didn’t lose any of its softness in the wash.  I was really worried about this since I was almost willing to “deal” with the smell if it meant washing would ruin my soft yarn.  Yes I am obsessed with the way this feels.   (Did I mention underwear?)  I don’t know why it has taken me so long to discover angora.  I think angora sweaters were a big thing in the 80s. Where was I?  All I can say is it was a good thing I didn’t ever date anyone wearing angora back then… you know teenage hands and all.

Remember my Franken-Sweater?

I knitted the collar out of the angora yarn.   I want to use the angora yarn for the cuffs but I have to figure out how to knit the sleeves.   I have been playing more and more with this sweater and I can’t really say that I am making it any better (other than the awesome… give my neck goose bumps… collar).   My daughter even pleaded with me to please not wear it in public.

I decided to play around with steeking and turn it into a cardigan.   I crocheted up one side of a knitted stitch and down the other.   Then I took scissors and cut up the middle.  It worked but puckered a little… (See below)

I must admit it is a bit “ugly” but it has an awesomely soft collar.   I  started the sleeves and I have played around a bit with embroidering more patterns into the sweater.  (None of this will make it look any better but it is fun to experiment)

Here is a close up of some of the “additions”.   I don’t think it makes it any more “daughter friendly”.   I promise to  let you see it when it is finished. (it is so nice to have very low expectations of creating anything wearable)

This is not my only knitting project.   I had a lot of other yarn that I had dyed and I decided to practice another sweater.  (I said practice because I don’t believe I am actually making one yet).  This second sweater is made up of natural gray wool and indigo and cabbage dyed yarn.

Here is a preview:

Yes… another very colorful sweater but much less “wonky”.   You can see my next color on the spool and I am debating on whether I should use the gray angora for the collar or for something else. (Anyone have knitting patterns for male boxer shorts?)

Thanks for reading this!… Let me know what you think! (Boxers or Collar)