Possessed of one of the softest furs of any animal on earth, the Angora rabbit periodically sheds or molts its downy coat which can then be gathered and spun into yarn. It's the stuff of adolescent fantasies - a tight angora sweater on beautiful young girl...
Angora fur has a hollow chambered fiber that provides natural insulation while allowing body moisture to escape, keeping the wearer dry as well as warm. It's eight to ten times warmer than wool but infinitely softer and lighter; even more so than cashmere.
It's difficult if not impossible to describe just how soft angora feels next to the skin - it's really something you have to experience to understand.
Some of the angora that I use in my Pussy Caps originates with fur havested from Chilean angora rabbits that's handspun by the women of a spinning co-op in a rural village in a cool, lush, rainy mountain valley in southern Chile. They use only the longest fibers of their rabbit's fur which makes for an extraordinarily high quality yarn that doesn't shed.
Angora fur can be spun up in lots of different ways and I use several different kinds for making Pussy Caps. Linda Jacobs adds a little wool to her angora fur yarns which gives them elasticity, strength and a subtle color variation.
My buddy Lisa Souza here in California provides me with most of my pure handspun & handpainted angora yarns - yarns that are more contained and not as fluffy as the Chilean angora but still have all of the softness, silkiness and warmth that angora is known for.
Painting the angora fibers before spinning them, sometimes afterwards and sometimes painting them both before and after, Lisa creates rich, subtle pallets that reflect her masterful understanding and use of color. A Pussy Cap crocheted from Lisa's handspun, handpainted angora yarn is in the picture to the left.
Lisa's handspun angora works really well for the body of the caps while the longer fibered Chilean angora works best in the caps as an accent, as in the cap that my daughter Auri is wearing here.
Regardless of how it's used, angora remains one of the most sensuously soft fibers available and Pussy Caps that use it will keep you warm and feeling like a million bucks.
Angora yarn will halo over time, meaning that as the fibers begin to loosen up a little bit from the twist of the spinning they will rise up and form what looks like a delicate halo around the body of the yarn. This is further accented with body warmth which will cause some of the angora fibers to stand straight up as if they were bristling.
Lisa Souza's handpainted & handspun angora yarns.
Here's a great example of handspun angora fur in its natural silver & grey color that I combined with a deep red wool from Uruguay for a sensuously soft and beautiful Pussy Cap.
The angora fur yarn in the Pussy Cap pictured above has been on quite a journey. Originating with Helle's angora rabbits in Denmark (left) the raw fibers were sent to Lisa who managed to turn them into the fine mess you see below.
This is actually the raw angora fur as it came out of Lisa's dyepots.
Hard to imagine that something that looks like the cat threw it up could end up being the beautiful yarn you see below.
Mahogany
Pure angora fur yarn, handpainted and handspun by Lisa Souza for her Rare Treasures Collection.
My pictures are redder than Lisa's with the true color being somewhere between the two.
