Fresh fiber, anyone?

Today my mother was visiting and we were able to shear the broken tort. It was about time! Now we need to get to the other doe. She looks like a puff ball right now!

My mother also took a large amount of the raw fiber from previous shearings home with her. She plans to card them using our Louet Junior drum carder and create some nice batts. She also took home several bags of alpaca fiber that our friend/business partner gave to us last fall so she can get those carded up. We might card some alpaca/angora-mix batts! They should be soft, warm, and wonderful.

I recently made a beautiful cowl from a merino/silk blend of yarn that has a bit of a halo to it, and I thought, "I bet this pattern would look beautiful made from angora! The pattern is called Lava Flow Cowl by Laura J Bellows. Here is my merino/silk version:

I can't wait to get some of the black angora spun up and transformed into this beautiful cowl!

So, things to do this month:

1. Shear the tort doe.

2. Card up some angora and angora/alpaca batts.

3. Get those batts spun up and start making beautiful things!

Want some raw angora to card or spin straight from the lock? Want some angora or angora/alpaca batts? Want some angora or angora-blend yarn? Maybe you even want to request a special project made from the yarn? Let us know! Email us at seedorff.family.farms@gmail.com or you can always comment on our blog!

New Blog!

I've started a new blog! I plan to still write in this one when we have specific Angora news, but I've started the blog FuzzyDorff Creations to showcase the myriad crafts in which I like to dabble. Come on over and check it out!

While I'm here, the "buns" (as I like to call them) are doing well. I just trimmed the black buck a few weeks ago so I have another pile of blue/black fluff! Let us know if you'd like some: $6 per ounce, which is a sandwich baggie stuffed full of the softest, warmest fiber you could want.

Send me a comment! Want to see new pictures of the rabbits? Pictures of the fluff? Want a specific yarn that we can spin up for you? Let me know! We'd be happy to oblige.

I'm Terrible at Writing Posts

I'm sorry I've been silent so long!

Life is just so busy when you're trying to supplement a living with fiber and working another full-time job on top of that!

Updates:

The rabbits are all well. We've started to shear them rather than pluck them, because we discovered that they were getting more coarse guard hairs. Since we started shearing them they have been less day-to-day work (less brushing) and the product has been softer.

We obtained a large amount of free(!) alpaca fiber recently, and we have been busily processing it into batts. We plan to blend some of the batts with angora. We also might blend the alpaca with some cashmere I got at Wisconsin Sheep and Wool this year.

We're busily spinning away! In the last month I have employed my wheel, my heavy low-whorl spindle, and my teeny high whorl spindle. I ended up with a beautiful bulky thick-and-thin wool/bamboo blend from the wheel, a thick and rugged Lincoln/fabric strip art yarn from the low-whorl, and a sportweight and super-sleek silk yarn.

I've been working on knitting a scarf out of my handspun llama. It's so exciting to be working with my own handspun!

We're always learning new techniques. We've been delving into needle felting and nålbinding this fall. I really enjoy nålbinding with fabric strips for trivets and rugs. I hope to learn to do it with yarn for mittens and hats as well.

The website is slow-going. A friend is making it for us and she leads a very busy life, so we're patiently awaiting the day when you can find our products online! If you're interested in angora fiber or yarn, please let me know by emailing us at:

seedorff.family.farms@gmail.com

We hope you are all busily crafting away at whatever fiber art you choose. We are currently employed with Christmas knitting. Only 8 more shopping weekends until Christmas! If you are of the Christmas-crafting persuasion, I hope you aren't as far behind as I am. :-)

The Trouble With Being Too Busy

Oh, how real life interferes with fibery pursuits!

Here are some updates with Seedorff Family Farms:

Website: We have a professional website in the works that will have pictures and information about the products that we have for sale. We will soon be opening an Etsy site that will be linked to our website where we will be selling raw angora fiber, hand-carded angora and angora-mix batts, angora and angora-mix yarns, and handmade stitch markers. We also hope to carry handmade shawl pins and angora hand-knits in the future.

WI S&W: Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival was a blast this year! I really enjoyed my two classes. Beginning spinning taught me both what I was already doing great and where I was failing. I discovered that the reason my yarn wasn't as lofty and soft as I wanted was because of the draft I was using. I had been spinning with a short forward draw and smoothing the yarn with my non-fiber hand. During my class I learned to spin with a short backward draw, and later in the day my teacher said I was doing so well that she taught me long draw. Here's the yarn that I made:

It's 100 yards of wool (lighter color spun with a short backward draw, darker color with a long draw) and it measures at 7 wraps per inch (bulky weight).

In my handcarding class I learned how to card beautiful rolags. We started with wool and then progressed to mohair, cashmere, silk, and even cotton! I really enjoyed carding the cotton punis (small rolags rolled on sticks). Here's a picture of what I did during class:

While at the Festival I also made some fabulous purchases, including a teensy drop spindle (to use with my angora) and a tahkli spindle so I can spin more cotton (although my "excuse" was to try it with angora, too). I actually used both of those spindles to spin the rolags above into an interesting yarn:

Spinning Wheel: I have been using my pretty new spinning wheel! I spun the yarn from my Beginning Spinning class you can see in the first picture above, as well as a skein of angora that I mentioned in my last post. Here's a pic:

I ended up with just over 100 yards at 9 wraps per inch (worsted weight). I've also just started spinning some llama fiber that a family friend gave to me. I'm planning to use it to weave a scarf to give to her as a gift, so I'm currently spinning a singles that is about laceweight to fingering weight with a short forward draw. I'll be finishing it with a two-ply. I'm not sure if I'll have enough for an entire scarf, but I think if I can't stretch the yarn far enough I'll use some border leicester fiber I have laying around for weft.

That's it for updates right now. Hopefully I'll be linking you to our website or our Etsy site next time I update! Don't forget, we have angora fiber for sale! Email us for details: seedorff.family.farms@gmail.com

Disappointment

Well, I imagine some news is required. After writing the last message when I was full of excitement to meet our first litter of bunnies I expected to be writing back with pictures of the kits. Instead, our doe was open. After all of that preparation, she wasn't pregnant. I was very disappointed at first, but I've gotten over it. We've decided to breed the other doe at some point later this month. Try, try again, right?

Now on to happier news- the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival is this weekend! We will be there once again, taking classes and talking to people in the business. I'm taking a beginning spinning class and a handcarding class, and my mother is taking an angora spinning class and a polymer pins class. I'm sure we will learn a lot about the different products we want to sell on our website.

Our website is still in the works. The friend that is helping us with our website is doing what she can, when she can. She also needs some different pictures from us. We're planning to take the rabbits outside on a nice day so we can get pictures of them in natural light.

One last bit of exciting news: I have a spinning wheel! My mother bought me a Schacht Ladybug for my birthday/Christmas for the next three years. I've been spinning some old alpaca I had on hand, and it's a dream!

Check back soon- I plan to take plenty of pictures next weekend and share them here. As always, we have angora fiber for sale! Please contact us for more information!

seedorff.family.farms@gmail.com

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!