So Many Updates!

Since our last post so many things have happened! I finished my first skein of angora yarn, we spent some time at the Iowa Sheep and Wool Festival, we decided to move forward in our business by starting a website and selling our wares on Etsy, and we decided to breed the rabbits!

First of all, I finally finished my first skein of handspun 100% angora yarn! I spun it on my Plum Creek Fiber Folk top-whorl drop spindle. The singles were spun Z, then Andean plied S. The resulting yarn is fingering weight, slightly thick-and-thin, as may be expected from my first yarn, I suppose. I tied it with some yellow acrylic:

My first handspun angora!

The second weekend in June was the 2012 Iowa Sheep and Wool Festival, and we attended for the third time. This time we camped on site, and it was such an enjoyable experience! We got to the campsite on Friday morning and then journeyed south to the town where our business partner lives. She was out of town, but there is a wonderful yarn shop there and my mother and I bought some yarn, some fiber, and I even bought some silk hankies to try to spin!

On Saturday my mother and I took two classes together. The morning brought the class "Fearless Dye" where we learned how to dye yarn and roving using Kool-Aid and acid dyes. Multiple methods were explored, including kettle-dyeing, powder-sprinkling, and hand-painting. Look what I made:

Kettle-dyed roving

Kool-Aid powder sprinkling skein

Hand-painted skein

Hand-painted skein

Saturday afternoon we took a class called Beginning Tunisian Crochet, and I learned all about Tunisian Simple Stitch, Tunisian Knit Stitch, and Tunisian Purl Stitch. I made this dishcloth:

This was made using Tunisian Simple Stitch.

On Sunday my mother and I split up. She took a lace knitting class in the morning and another dyeing class that afternoon. Sunday morning I took a class called Advanced Rigid Heddle weaving, and I learned all kinds of lace techniques, including pick-up patterns and finger-manipulated patterns. I started this wrap:

Here you can see honeycomb lace and lino. I also learned spot lace.

Sunday afternoon brought another weaving class for me, called Enjoy SAORI Weaving. I was put in front of a SAORI loom and told to just go crazy and improvise whatever made me feel good! I used some techniques from my morning class, plus some plain-weave, plus my teacher taught me how to do SAORI multi-color technique:

I made this whole thing in 3 hours!

The Iowa Sheep and Wool Festival was a blast, and I learned so much! I can't wait until next year!

In the month of June we collectively made the business decision that it was time to really take off, business-wise. We need to get an Etsy account up and running and start selling our wares. We want to sell raw angora, angora batts, angora yarn, angora garments, hand-dyed fiber, shawl pins, stitch markers, and more! When we get this all settled I will be sure to update the blog again!

We also decided to get a website up and running. A dear friend is helping us pick out a template that is user-friendly for us and our customers, and we hope to get that running in the near future. The URL will be www.seedorff-family-fiber.com and we will advertise our wares and our angora bunnies that will be available in the near future! We will also be getting a new email address and possibly updating the blog to reflect the new name. The second these things get going you will know about it through this blog. 

Also, and perhaps the biggest news of this whole update, is that we have bred one of our does! We bred our tort doe to our black buck, and bunnies will be due in early August. We plan on selling all of our bunnies, so please let us know if you're interested! If we have some success with the tort's bunnies we will breed the broken tort this fall yet. As always, you can contact us to purchase raw fiber, bats, and now reserve your bunny at seedorff.family.farms@gmail.com. 

Here are some updated pictures of the rabbits, since it's been awhile since you've seen them. These were just taken this past weekend:

The buck

His fiber

The broken tort

Her fiber

The tort

Her fiber

This post has gotten long enough, but I have one more quick reminder: 

We have fiber for sale! We will have rabbits for sale in the near future! Please contact us at seedorff.family.farms@gmail.com!

Hello everyone! It's been too long, I know. How time flies!

Things are still going great with the rabbits. Our buck, who I lovingly call "Big Boy", continues to poke his head out of his door the second I unlatch it and beg for nose rubs! The broken tort doe, who I like to call "Tinkerbell", absolutely loves the little pretzel treats that I buy at a pet store and she will yank them out of my hand the second I offer them. The tort doe, who I tend to call a very inventive "Tort", will stand in her cage doorway and beg for food at every meal time. These three beautiful English Angoras have lived with us for almost a year and a half, and they have become a part of the family. We keep thinking about breeding them, but I'm nervous that we would have a difficult time selling the bunnies. If you would be interested in babies, please email us at seedorff.family.farms@gmail.com!

On the crafting front we have been carding angora into batts for ease of spinning and we have been cranking out angora yarn! We have single- and two-ply yarns ranging in weight from sport to bulky. We also have plans to card some alpaca/angora blends together. I'm sure that will be a dream to spin!!

As always, we have angora fiber available!!! We have black, tort, and broken tort fiber- $6 per oz., plus extra for shipping. If you're interested please email us at seedorff.family.farms@gmail.com!

Angora Yarn Ahoy!

It's been almost two months, but boy have those two months been busy!!!

We have all been frantically spinning! I have been going through as much angora as I can on my drop spindle, as you can see here:

But the more impressive showing is my mother's progress with her Louet spinning wheel!!! She has been spinning for 2+ hours a night almost every night, working with Lincoln wool, alpaca, and of course our own angora! Here is what she has cranked out, modeled by me with varying degrees of success:

We have also been having fun with the drum carder, and I have plans to blend some tort angora with some chocolate brown alpaca my mother purchased from a farm in Missouri in the near future! If only life would get out of my way for a few minutes. :-)


As always, we have angora fiber for sale!!! Please contact us with any questions at seedorff.family.farms@gmail.com or comment on this post!

Wisconsin Sheep and Wool!

We had a fantastic weekend at the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival in Jefferson, WI! Check out some pictures:

So much shopping.

My mother checks out kits for felted bird yurts.

I admire some roving with coffee in hand.

I love the roving SO MUCH!!!

One building full of vendors, including such products as roving, weaving supplies, yarns, books, etc.

The other building full of vendors. One vendor even had angora rabbits for sale, and they were all sold out by Saturday morning!

Seedorff Family Farms business partner and best friend Xa took a class about weaving diamonds using a diamond loom. Here she is exercising what she learned:

Look at those cute little diamonds!

We wanted to be sure to get a picture in front of the sign, but we didn't get around to it until Saturday evening, so I apologize for the quality of the picture. My mother and I are joined by our dogs.

For the angora spinning class that my mother and I took we needed to have a skein of wool to use for plying, so I spent all Saturday night finishing up a skein of Corriedale that I started back in June. Isn't it beautiful?

Sunday morning we headed over to our class in the "Wonders of Wool" Building 1. We got there a little early and took the opportunity to get some pictures:

Mom and me

Bill and Nancy Barnett. Nancy taught our class "Spin Some Bunny".

Nancy shows off one of her rabbits.

Once the class started there were photo ops constantly! There are many more pictures than I can possibly put on here, but I went through and picked out the best ones, plus a video!

Mom feels some 100% Angora yarn that Nancy spun.

Nancy shows us how to get German Angora spun on her drop spindle.

Here I go! German Angora fiber to yarn, woo!

And spinning, and spinning....

Most of the class had wheels, but I wasn't at a disadvantage at all.

Nancy shows us how to harvest fleece from a French Angora. She gave this little guy away at her afternoon class. We couldn't stay for it. :-(

Nancy uses my mother's wheel to spin right off the rabbit.

Nancy spins off the rabbit, using my mother's Louet wheel.

Now my mother gives it a try.

We learned SO much!! The class was a great experience, and I would recommend Nancy Barnett's classes to anyone! She was very helpful and was willing to change up her plans to help us with what we wanted to know. My mother and I walked away from the building feeling like we were on top of the world. Why, oh why, didn't we bring any of our own Angora with us so we could spin more RIGHT NOW??!! :-) 

On the way back to the camper I snapped a couple photos:

The sign in front of our class building.

The grounds. So many buildings full of fun things!

And once we got back to the camper:

My yarn!! This is all yarn that I created at my class. The lighter skein is Angora plied with Corriedale, and the Angora is progressive, starting with white German, gray French, buff English, and brown Satin. The darker skein is French Angora carded with Shetland, then spun and Andean plied. Both yarns were made using my Purple Heart drop spindle I purchased at the Iowa Sheep and Wool Festival!

It was a fantastic weekend and I'm so glad that we went! The class was so worth the travel time and expense. I also purchased many beautiful things while I was there! I will have to include those in a later post when I have time to lay everything out and get some nice pictures. 

So, angora yarn, anyone? I'm going to start cranking it out!! Please contact us if you are interested! Comment on this post or email seedorff.family.farms@gmail.com for more information. We also have black, tort, and broken tort angora fiber for sale!

Angora Spinning Soon!!

Things have been quiet over the summer, but we're about to get back into some excitement. We will be attending the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival in a couple weeks and my mother and I are both taking an Angora spinning class!! I'm hoping that with a little instruction we can be cranking out beautiful handspun Angora in a couple months! Yay for yarn!!

Don't forget, we have fiber for sale! Tort (brown/peach), Broken Tort (mostly white), and Black (grayish) for $6/oz.

Iowa Sheep and Wool Festival

The weekend of June 11th and 12th my mother and I went to the Iowa Sheep and Wool Festival!! We spent some time networking, but even more importantly, we both took beginning spinning classes so we can get to work on that angora yarn we want to spin!! We had a fantastic time, minus the horrible car trouble we had on Saturday, but everything worked out okay. Here we are in the car waiting for the pizza we ordered for dinner Friday night after we had already gotten to the area:

The next morning my mother went to her spinning class while I dealt with car problems. She spent time learning to prepare the fiber, including carding, as well as drop spindling and working on a spinning wheel. She had taken her own wheel, which we both have dabbled with, but she finally had someone to show her how to work the wheel properly and she is turning out some lovely yarn! When I was home this past weekend I saw a skein of brown alpaca she is working on, and I can't wait to use it! (No pictures of that though, sorry!)

When I got to the fairgrounds later in the day we spent some time watching the sheepdog trials, which are always amazing to watch. One of the dogs that was working that afternoon had gotten 12th place at Nationals the previous year, and it was a joy to watch him work the sheep. They also had demonstrations late that afternoon where they taught people about sheepdog training while having the dogs work ducks, which was adorable to watch!

On the way back to the hotel Saturday evening we snapped a quick pic of me next to the Festival sign.

Here is the roving that my mother snapped up on Saturday afternoon. Isn't it beautiful?!

 Here lies the toils of my mother's class: some purple and white singles plied together on the wheel, and some purple singles on the drop spindle.

 Here is what I snapped up on Sunday. My drop spindling class was from 8:30-12:30, where I learned how to use a top whorl spindle. I had only tried a bottom whorl before, and I now completely understand why some people say it's easier to learn on a top whorl. The plastic zip-top bag at the top has an assortment of roving that my teacher gave us at our class, and then going clockwise we have: the Purple Heart wood top whorl spindle that I bought, two mini-skeins of two-ply yarn that I spun and plied during class, deep violet and bright yellow Merino top, "balsam" hand-painted BFL roving, "Cherokee" hand-painted Merino/Silk roving, and in the middle there is a skein of sock yarn that I couldn't resist.

 Here is a close-up of my new top whorl spindle, with some Corriedale roving that I started spinning two days ago.

 Here is one of the mini-skeins that I spun during my class. It's two-ply Corriedale, with S-twist singles.

My skein is a little thick-n-thin, but it's not too irregular. Here is a better picture with an American quarter to gauge the size.


During my class I spoke to someone who had purchased some angora at the fair. They said that they had paid a fortune for some clipped fiber and they had found a lot of vegetable matter in it, including droppings. I "subtly" hinted that she should buy some angora from me and started talking about my rabbits, but she didn't bite. :-) However, I did feel good about the fact that I know that I offer a superior product. Remember, we have angora fiber for sale!!! Please don't hesitate to email us with questions about any of our fiber.

It was a very informative weekend. My mother and I are already looking forward to the next fair we're hoping to attend. Hopefully all the details will work out and we will be attending that festival as well as taking a class that we know they are offering that is all about spinning angora fiber! We will keep you posted.

Also: my mother and I are planning on playing with her drum carder to create some wool/angora batts. I'll be sure to post pictures if this comes to fruition. If you would have any interest in this, don't hesitate to let us know!