Heathered Pink Angora Yarn

Posted in Uncategorized, Yarn by heartfeltangoras

My friend gave me about 4 oz of grey English Angora fiber to spin that she had been saving from her rabbits. She doesn’t spin, but is an avid knitter, so she was looking forward to knitting with her own fiber.

I hackled the fiber to sort out all the short bits, neps, and hay, and was left with about 1.7 oz of prime fiber. She asked for pink in the batts, so I used 2 different shades of pink Tussah silk, and dyed some merino/silk blend top to layer in the batts.

I spun and 2-plied the batts into about 180 yards.Although I love the softness, I don’t care for Angora’s tendency to bloom and shed, so I spun the singles with a very high twist so that the loose ends have a harder time escaping the yarn.

Thanks for reading!

18Sep2015

A surprise litter…

Posted in Rabbits by heartfeltangoras

About 3 weeks ago Chloe had 4 adorable kits! Right now they are at the peak of baby cuteness.

This was an accidental litter of Chloe, (Black Tort) X Andre (Chocolate Tort). (Rabbits are very sneaky!) I think there are 2 males and 2 females, 3 Black Torts and possibly one Blue Tort.

I am excited to see how the possible Blue Tort develops… I’m tempted to keep her. She is the runt of the litter and is very highly shaded. She is the one farthest to the left in the picture above – you can see how she is shaded compared to her littermate.

This litter will be ready to go to new homes by October 25, but you can reserve one until they are old enough to leave their mother! Contact me, and we can work something out. The babies will be $25 each or $45 for two, with partial pedigree.
Thank you!

24Jun2015

Bunnies are ready to go…

Posted in Rabbits by heartfeltangoras

..to their new homes! I have 2 black and 2 agouti French Angora bunnies for sale, born 4/17/15. I updated my Rabbits For Sale page, so please check it out for more info. Thanks!

6May2015

Baby Bunny Photo Bomb!

Posted in Rabbits by heartfeltangoras

The babies are 2.5 weeks old, and at the peak of cuteness. Enjoy!

This litter’s colors are 3 black and 2 agouti. I will be keeping one of the black ones if it is a doe, but the rest I will be selling, so feel free to leave a comment and reserve a bunny for you!

20Apr2015

Spring is in the air…

Posted in Rabbits by heartfeltangoras

..With baby bunnies again! This litter of 5 is from Chloe (Black Tortoiseshell) x Basil (Chestnut Agouti). I am hoping for some new colors in this litter. (Last litter all the babies were Black Torts, same as their mom Chloe.) I’m not sure what color these guys are yet. I think 3 are all black and 2 are black with pink tummies and ears. They are only a few days old, so by the end of the week they should be old enough for me to take them out of the nest box and get a good look.

This litter was interesting because 3 were born on Friday afternoon, and 1 was born on Saturday morning, and another Saturday afternoon. All were healthy though, and Chloe seems to be fine. She was early- she wasn’t due until Sunday!

Here is Chloe- she looks pretty ragged because of all the fur she pulled for the nest.

14Mar2015

From Bunny To Yarn

Posted in Uncategorized by heartfeltangoras

I finished my first real yardage of Angora yarn! I made my first weaving project, a scarf. Here is the yarn- a lot of time and effort has gone into it!
I blended a 75% alpaca to 25% angora mix, from my French Angora buck, Andre. This yarn has taken most of the summer and fall of 2014 to prepare for – I custom made a hackle to blend the fiber on, harvested the fiber from Andre, I waited until the Rhinebeck festival to get the alpaca, I blended, spun, Navajo plied and steamed the yarn, warped the loom, and now I’m finally using it!

Here are pictures of the process.

Andre, the wool producer

My custom hackle- here I’m blending the alpaca and angora to spin.
Here is the finished yarn- Navajo plied, roughly 250 yards.

Then I steamed the yarn, warped the loom, and started weaving!

I finished the scarf with a technique called hemstitching, which ties off the ends of the woven piece and gathers the warp into groups of fringe.

And here is the finished scarf!

Thanks for reading!

14Nov2014

The Results of 1 lb of Merino!… and the Escapee

Posted in Rabbits, Yarn by heartfeltangoras

All the way back in September I was given a huge ball of green Merino wool to spin. It’s taken me 2 months to finish it, but it was a good learning experience.

I did 3 skeins of true 3-ply, (my first) using my new Lazy Kate. I learned that to create a nice defined 3-ply I should hold each single at an angle from all the others. I did 2 skeins of Navajo Plied yarn, (also my first) and figured out that I either over-spun or over-plied it, because while all 3 skeins of 3-ply were balanced, both of my Navajo plied skeins were unbalanced.

I also did my second attempt at corespinning with this wool. This time my corespinning turned out much better than the first attempt. I tried this time to spin it thinner, so therefore it wouldn’t be as chunky and get caught in the orifice.

I got around 550 – 600 yards out of this, not counting the 30 or so yards of corespun.

Free Range Bunnies

Steffy (Stefano) has escaped from his cage three times and has been found wandering around the yard! At first I thought I had left his cage door open by accident, but the third time he escaped I had just groomed him and put him back in his cage, so I knew I had fastened the latch right! I watched him for a minute and figured out that the little bugger had been biting the wire of the cage door and shaking it as hard as he could. If he did it for long enough the latch would come unhooked, and then, bunny freedom! I soon fixed that!

Well, thanks for reading! God Bless, Rebekah

9Oct2014

HFA’s Newest!

Posted in Rabbits by heartfeltangoras

Yesterday we drove up to Springfield, Mass. to pick up a new rabbit!

And here he is,a beautiful Jr Chestnut Agouti buck! I’ve named him Basil. Well, it was a contest between Giacomo, Basil and Stefano. But Basil won out. I think he looks like a Basil.

His previous owner clipped his coat a bit, so it is not as long as it will be when he grows it out.

As you may have noticed, all my angoras look pretty much the same, as they are all Black and Chocolate Torts.

So I have been searching for a new Frenchie in a different color. In a tort-to-tort breeding, all the babies will be more torts.
In an Agouti-to-Tort breeding I could possibly get more Torts, Agoutis, Black, Orange/Fawn, and maybe Chocolate.
The next litter will be exciting!

2 of the babies have been reserved so far, so in the spring when the babies have all been sold hopefully I will breed another litter.

Thanks for reading!

God Bless, Rebekah

19Apr2014

Poppy Felt Painting, Pt 2

Posted in Uncategorized by heartfeltangoras

Last time you saw the poppy field painting, there was almost no poppies in the field! Now I’ve finished the needle felting part, so I’ll post the photos of this process.

My reference photo

Step 1

First, using needle felting, I blocked out the shapes of the big foreground poppies, and added shadow from the trees on the distant poppy field.
In retrospect I should have also filled in the bare white areas of the green field.

Step 2
Here I’ve needle felted shading and more detail to the foreground poppies, reconstructed the the top right corner and right side, and added the midground poppies.
You could also embroider red french knots for the midground poppies instead of needle felting them.

Step 3

Here I worked on the distant poppy field and hills on the left, adding a little shading, a few trees and defining some rows in the field.

Step 4

Here I added poppies on the left side, added some green to the distant field, redirected the distant tree shadow, added a little lighter green to the dark trees, put some blue in the sky, and put some more poppies in the right side too.

Finished!

Thanks for reading my posts!
God Bless, Rebekah

1Feb2014

Real Acorn Cap Ornaments

Posted in Uncategorized by heartfeltangoras

Here I’ve made acorn ornaments in three colors, with bakers twine loops in different colors for hanging. I’ve taken pictures of most of the process, but this is just a quick intro, not too much detail here.

Here are the supplies:

Felted ball
Acorn caps
Bakers twine
Strong glue
Drill

Also, (not pictured) I drilled holes in all the acorn caps for the twine to go through.

First start by felting a large-ish marble sized ball, depending on the size of your acorn caps so the ball will fit in the acorn cap comfortably.Next, string a loop of bakers twine about 2-3 inches long through the hole in the acorn cap.

Now glue your ball into the acorn cap.

Aannnnd…. the finished acorns!

Easy, no?

HeartFelt Angoras

Fiber Arts and French Angora Rabbits

Tag Archives: Connecticut french angora

Heathered Pink Angora Yarn

A surprise litter…

Bunnies are ready to go…

Baby Bunny Photo Bomb!

Spring is in the air…

From Bunny To Yarn

The Results of 1 lb of Merino!… and the Escapee

HFA’s Newest!

Poppy Felt Painting, Pt 2

Real Acorn Cap Ornaments