Why doesn´t Eva spin 100% angora...

I got a question via my Etsy shop yesterday. Lady in question was asking me if I do just angora, since I do spin angora with silk a lot. Now for those of you who are not experienced with Angora as fibre or yarn, here is the answer.
Angora rabbit, which is the "giver" of this super light and fluffy fibre is an amazing animal. The hair is harvested by just brushing out or by shaving. Now this is important for the bunny, since the poor animal could suffocate on its own hair as well as get intestinal blockage by it. So by shaving it and brushing it, it has safe life. The hair this special bunny has is amazing. It can be a wee ticklish when used by itself, but it sheds even when spun into yarn- it is just so fine!. Therefore other fibres are added to keep it in place. The mix with silk is a classic. Angora hair is and always was considered a luxury fibre.

So, next time you are buying angora yarn in shop, you might buy just those 200g needed for sweater if it is 100% angora, but you will be covered in the hair all the time. You could however get a 70/30 or 50/50 mix in which case you will follow the yardage for the sweater you want to make in needle size recommended and be fluff free.
So, there. My reason for spinning angora mixes.

Angora/angora/angora...
There are angora cats.
Angora rabbits...
and angora goats...
There are people out there who spin angora cat hair and make it into clothing, bags, accesories etc.
Angora rabbit produces Angora fibre.
Angora goat produces Mohair fibre.

Many Thanks to Betty who fixed a mistake I made in this post originally, regarding goats and their fibre!

SWT autumn auction

Sighthound Welfare Trust is doing another auction! Staring today (29th. September) and running on for a week (till 6th.October).
So, make sure to have a look about to get a bargain, buy something special and help raise some pennies for amazing GRWE, so they can keep on helping all those hounds.


I have donated a pair of fingerless gloves

and a doggie companion (he preffers that over calling him just "toy") called HUGO.




I do send internationaly for free to any winner. The membership on SWT is free ;-)

Oh dyes...

I am a proud owner of a hill of dyes. The colours and shades I did not have before were given to me for my BDay by my Norwegian family. One can not help but love them!

 

At the same time I got huge package from WoW full of delicious fibre. There are some of my old favourites such as baby camel and angora, which I love to spin. 

However... there was also some secret weapon to use in long project I am planning to spend perhaps next two years on doing. I will update on that when I start on it.

Spinning, spinning, spinning...

I haven´t stop spinning from the end of TdF. I was in such a for I couldn´t!
Now, it might have seen I have been lazy and was not updating my blog, which I wasn´t, but at least my new shop on Etsy is not empty, even though nobody is buying :-(.

However, I did not advertise yet, so I am hoping that next month during time my add will be flying all over ravelry, something might change. Somebody might want to buy my yarn again... Maybe I even throw in some fibre for spinners... I do have plenty of that ;-)

Le Tour

We are half way in dear friends.
Half way in what? Tour de Fleece of course!
During Tour de France, the cycling event, you know the one, right? The one where people can actually die participating. There were quite a few scary crashes so far and even some winners of stages were unexpected!
And yet, while I do not care who will win the yellow jersey or the green one, I am a HUGE polka dot watcher. For those of you who do not follow... Polka dot jersey is given to best climbers, i.e. people who do not get heart attack after 200km of riding their bike up the steep hill. I will, of course make sure you get to see what I have been up to during Le Tour, but I want to leave this till it is over. But the hill of spun yarn is getting slowly bigger even though my hand decided to take few days off. Well, at least I got some ironing done with the other hand LOL
So, if you are spinners, you can still join in on www.ravelry.com
I can be found in 3 teams on regular basis:
Team Hopelessly Overcommited (of the same named knitting forum)
Team Bacon Waffle (full of infamous members of The Very Longest Ferdinand)
Team Bring Me a Shrubbery (well, you guessed it, right? Knitters who say "Ni")

week in Shropshire and Herefordshire

We spend absolutelly amazing week mainly in Shropshire following our camping in Norfolk.
If you are in Shropshire, there are hundrets of walks for you and your doggies, you can find them at Shropshire walking web. Try some circular, or linear ones (there are plenty buses to take to get home wherever you are staying ;-)).
It would not be a visit to Shropshire if we did not visit two important places...
One is Acton Scott working farm where during 1 year a TV series Victorian Farm was shot. 3 people lived the old victorian way there and since I am huge fan of the series I could not miss that! Now, doggies are not allowed as the farm animals walk freely about, however there are 3 great walks in area- mind the hills! and on some of the walks you will be passing parts of farm itself. We did it the lazy way. Dag and boys did climb the hills on walks and I visited the farm.

Acton Scott working farm

The other place is of course biggest walk- in museum. Also working, no doubt about that. Blists Hill is World famous and the streets and its shops DO ALLOW DOGS in! We saw Japanese tourists, Americans and I have hear some Dutch walking there.
The village itself is amazing, staff super friendly and there is a walk behind the village for some quiet moment for your pack if you decide to take dogs with you.
I do recommend that if you are not going to visit any of the museums itself in BH, that you arrive in the afternoon. Why? Because schools are bound to be about most mornings and if you have shy and nervous dogs, afternoons are much more easy on them. Dogs are not charged for entry ;-)
If you are dogless on your trip. Come as early as possible! There is so much to see and if you have children, so much to do!

Do not miss Blists Hill, it has so much to offer.

camping in Norfolk

We did have horrid weather for our camping this year.

Getting several inflammations in my ankles did not help, but we tried to make most of it ;-)
We did have a dear Millie Moo cow for an afternoon which was great since Millie and Bess were not camping with us this year and we missed the flirt Millie and the shy Bess.
I managed some shopping in craft store with Roo (Babs) and ended up with some jelly rolls for quilting (YAY!), silk for painting and some other bits and pieces.

Rob and Ann kindly made us a dinner, which we really enjoyed. As always we were neighbouring with Birdie Towers and finally met the norty Teddy. Who is super cute and just simply crazy.
We had nice walk on beach and great time walking on dog walk surrounding the campsite.

So, if you want to camp in Norfolk, I highly recommend:
http://www.campingandcaravanningclub.co.uk/siteseeker/aspx/details.aspx?id=7250&returnPage=search.aspx

and if you want to spend a lot of money on quilting fabric and goods, yarn or art goods, make sure to pop by:
sew simple
Dog friendly restaurant which serves dinners even for dogs (as well as take aways for the four legged):
Orange Tree