Angora — soft, luxurious angora is warmer than sheep’s wool with a beautiful fuzzy halo and is my favorite fiber to work with. I had angora rabbits before any of my other farm animals. Angora is the first fiber I ever spun. That is how I learned to spin — angora combed from my rabbits on a Turkish drop spindle. Inspite of the myriad animals that have “angora” in front of their names or discription, angora fiber only comes from rabbits. There are different kinds of angora rabbits: English, French, satin and German/giant — each possessing characteristics that make them unique. Angora fiber is usually harvested during grooming as angoras shed a lot and naturally blow their coats (molt) a couple of times year depending on the rabbit. Angora fiber may also be harvested by shearing rabbits with scissors. Due to their long coats, angoras need extra care. If not properly cared for their fur becomes matted. Like cats, rabbits may accumulate hair balls from grooming themselves. Unlike cats, rabbits lack a gag reflex. The hair may become blocked in the intestine. This is called wool block. Currently, my small rabbit herd consists of satin, and French angoras. Satin angoras are a rare breed that produce a fine, soft fleece with a beautiful shimmer. French angoras produce more fiber than satin angoras and have more guard hair, which makes their long coats more manageable. I had one spring litter this year. They are satin x French. The satinized gene is recessive; so these bunnies will have the appearance of a French angora. However, If they were bred to a pure satin angora rabbit the chance of the kits being satinized would be 50%. If bred to a satin x French angora the chance of the kits being satinized would be 25%. I have four rabbits left for sale: two bucks and two does. Anyone interested in these rabbits may contact me at: northcountryfaire@ymail.com 
Angora
So Tired…
Yes, I have been long absent from my blog. The winter has been long and hard. In January I was diagnosed with Hoshimoto’s Thyroiditis, an autoimmune disorder in which the immune system attacks the thyroid gland. It has been difficult keeping up with everything — my family, friends, animals, art… It is amazing how a small gland can control your life, ruin your health and destroy your ambitions.
As I now search for the words (now locked somewhere in my thyroxine starved brain) to explain my experiences for the past months and find my missing time, I start my slow journey of recovery. During the first months of spring, I start all over again.
more color…
Icelandic fleece dyed with Kool-aid, various mixtures of purple, red and orange.
I have been doing a lot of experimenting with color in the last few weeks. The top and most of the following pictures are examples of dying with Kool-Aid. I normally prefer experimenting with plant based dyes, but the only dye plants I have available to me at this time come from the grocery store. I have been acheiving interesting color combinations by mixing different colored Kool-Aid powders together. The fleece pictured above was washed, then dyed using various combinations of orange, purple (grape) and red (cherry and cherry punch). I also added alum. (I don’t think that alum is necessary to make the dye color-fast, but I buy alum in bulk and figured it wouldn’t hurt.) After the fleece was rinsed and dryed, I carded it with cotton carders and blended the clouds together to spin.
Pictured above is the skein of yarn that resulted. It is a strong, course Icelandic that I am currently weaving into fabric using a small tapestry loom.
This yarn (pictued above) was spun from white wool roving, then dyed using a combination of red and orange Kool-aid. It was later knit into a pair of girls mittens that can be seen at my etsy shop here.
I’ve also been using purple cabbage as a dye plant. Purple cabbage with alum creates a nice baby blue dye with a tinge of purple. I think that it would be possible to get a purple if put in the dye bath a second time.
The following fleece was first dyed with mint, which created a subtle hue of light green, then dyed with cabbage.
more kool-aid fun — play dough
Kool-Aid play dough
This is my favorite home made play dough recipe. Unlike many other recipes I have tried, this play dough remains soft and smooth without crumbling.
1 cup Flour
1/4 cup salt
2 TBSP cream of tartar
1 TBSP Vegetable oil
1 pkg Kool-Aid
1 cup water
Mix all ingredients in pot; stir over medium heat; when mixture forms a ball in pot, remove from heat; cool; knead until smooth; store in air tight container. Knead in extra flour if dough is too sticky.
Kool-Aid the not so natural eco-friendly dye
Admittedly, there is nothing natural about Kool-Aid; but with winter soon on its way, my plant dying options are growing slim. Soon the view outside my window will be barren and white, leaveless trees, brown grasses, drooping evergreens quiet in their winter slumber, cedars turning brown as they drop small cones and shed their needles on the snow. There is not a lot of color in winter, but a lot of shades of gray and white fading into the horizon until night quickly comes and contrasts the wasted ground with spectacular lights in the dark sky.
Icelandic hand spun
So Kool-Aid, though not natural, is an acceptable dye alternative. It is easy to use, easy to clean-up. I don’t feel guilty about pouring it down the kitchen sink when my dye-pot is depleted (not as guilty as I would feel serving it to my 3-year-old!).
I used to dye my hair with Kool-Aid when I was in junior high. Now I am dying yarn — a little heat and a splash of alum. I put the yarn in a shallow pot, added just enough enough water to cover, stirred in several packets of Kool-Aid, heated, sprinkled a little (less than 1tsp) alum over the mixture. I kept the heat on the stove low — unlike plant dying when I boiled and simmered like a tea.
When done, I rinsed it in the sink until the water no longer turned red. The yarn I dyed was a coarse Icelandic wool. It is strong with a great texture. I am going to use it for making lucets.
winter comes early?
We usually don't get a lot of snow until Nov. by then the trees are bare and everything is brown.
It is nearing the middle of October and the ground is covered in a blanket of fresh fallen snow. Trees with their leaves still attached, light greens fading into various shades of red, yellow and orange, hover above the cold earth and shed their leaves onto the snow. My garden is quiet. Hardy herbs like mints, catnip and lady’s bed straw poke out of the snow, appearing as green as early spring under their shroud. Towering sunflowers wither and bend from the weight of the snow. Though all of the bounty has been harvested one last morsel remains to be collected. I have not yet collected all of the seeds. All of my annuals are heirlooms — a living piece of history passed down through the generations. (No Monsanto monstrosities for me.) Lush leafy greens, herbs, flowers all need to be replenished next year. I allowed a small plot of radishes to flower in the middle of my herb bed, surprisingly ornamental flowers that attracted butterflies and honeybees, turned into seed pods that promised to keep my household supplied with fresh sprouts for salads and sandwiches all winter long – a tiny taste of spring while the frigid winds blow outside. I have yet to plant next year’s woad for its blue dye pigment.
My heirloom "mammoth sunflower" may still be mammoth, but is sunny no longer.
So, I have come too late for the final harvest (or winter has come too early). Usually it doesn’t get this cold until November; but nothing about this year’s weather has been ordinary. To add insult to injury, as I went about the late afternoon feedings, wind blowing a mixture of snow and leaves into my face, all of the rabbit water bottles were icy and frozen — usually the first sign of winter’s arival on my small homestead in the middle of the north woods.
Autum Harvest
washing root veggies from my heirloom gardens
The cold, wet July has departed. Now it is September. The crisp fall air has surprisingly ceded to hot, dry summer like weather.
I am assessing the success of the gardens as they near the end of the season. Garden greens, herbs and root vegetables thrived during the colder and wetter than normal June and July. They defied the late frosts and spread bountifully — a beautiful bounty of different shades of greens, reds. Ornamental and aromatic leaves spread until late July when poppies, sunflowers, nasturtiums, Bergamot began to bloom in splendor.
red bergamot
The tomatoes, corns, shelling beans, cucumbers, squash did not do so well. They needed the month of July to be hot and humid in order to develop and ripen their fruits. Though they produced flowers, they were stunted in the cold July and frosty June.
Late August, early September brought to us what July didn’t — heat and humidity. Though the cool breeze of autumn coming could still be felt, the chill was far surpassed by the sun shining hot and steady high in the sky. We created a frost tent to cover the tomatoes during an early August frost (We have already endured a few nights of below freezing 27, 28 degrees) that has since turned into a tropical greenhouse during these unexpectedly hot days. We still hold out hope that our 5 foot high heirloom bushes laden with green tomatoes beautiful in their diversity will lead to busy October days dedicated to stewing sugo, salsa and pressure canning as we prepare for the hard, cold and dark winter months ahead.
potatoes growing out of compost
natural dying — tansy
- yellow tansy flowers yield a bright yellow dye when using alum as a mordant.
The herb tansy grows rampantly and is invasive on my home stead. It is difficult to get rid of, has strong roots that are difficult to pull, is toxic to goats in large quantities and spreads prolifically. I have finally found a use for it. It makes a beautiful, vibrant dye.
I collected the flower tops and put them in a steel pot. It didn’t take long to have a whole pot full. I filled the pot with water and placed it on the stove top, boiling it as if I were making tea – a very bitter, pungent smelling tea. My timing was poor. After many colder than average days, summer finally came in August. The steaming tansy mixed with the heat and humidity already present in my kitchen created a sauna like fog. Lanolin mixed with tansy is a less than pleasant smell.
tansy flowers collected, preparing to simmer
simmer wool in the dye-pot
After simmering for a few minutes, I drained the flower tops from the liquid and placed the pot back onto the stove. I added one teaspoon of alum. The liquid turned a dramatic golden yellow. I kept the pot simmering on the stove and began to add wool roving from my Icelandic sheep badger. I let it simmer on the stove for about an hour, removed the pot and let it sit over night. I removed the roving from the pot and hung it to dry. By this time, the raining cold weather had returned; so I was unable to hang it outside on the line. I had to settle for the drying rack in my bedroom. I put a small clip-on fan near the wool, blowing the strange tansy/lanolin mix throughout the room.
After it was dry, I blended the sunshine yellow roving with white angora, clippings from an English angora. I was very pleased with the result.
wool roving dyed naturally using tansy then blended with white angora
a long time coming
knitting socks toe first, angora/wool blend, hand spun, natural colors
It is the second week of august. The sun, long awaited, is shining high in the sky. I have been enjoying my gardens in full bloom, the wild flowers that linger on the side and spread out, narrowing the garden paths, are also in full bloom, attracting humming birds, butterflies and bees with their sweet nectar.
Today I am enjoying a quiet day of knitting outside on the front porch, relishing the heat of the sun as it illuminates my pail skin. My son, Caleb, plays with his power tools, those that he earned yesterday by turning three. The little plastic drill bits whorl as he fixes the screen door. I knit my socks deciding, ambivalent to continue my stitches until they reach under the knee. Maybe I will finish off with some soft, warm angora. In spite of the sun that is now hot against my skin; I feel a slight chill in the air — the chill of autumn coming. It will be winter soon enough.
Etsy
In the process of opening my new Etsy shop: www.northcountryfaire.etsy.com Advertised as a humane, no kill homestead that keeps various fiber animals, goats, bees and pastured poultry. We have a passion for heirloom gardening, natural living and keeping the traditions of the past alive while progressing into the future. Our products reflect these interests.
I don’t have a lot of fiber art to list at this time, but am listing a lot of interesting vintage items that have historical significance or nostalgic value. I personally enjoy going through the stuff that is stored in my garage, especially the old Auburn rubber company toys.
