Scenes from the Barbershop

Saturday was nice and sunny, and I was able to convince Chone that he needed to be relieved of his heavy winter coat (or at least part of it)

He’s usually a good sport for at least the first half of the job.

And we had a nice bit of quality time, with lots of rubs and snuggles

He’s such a sweet little dude 🙂
So he’s about half-shorn now, much like Dottie and Esther.
Still haven’t had a go at Felix and Frank yet, and Frank look like he’s already shedding his fleece a bit.
It’s just as well- I think that he’s pretty felted. But I hope to have a chance to get him tidied up soon.

In other fiber-y news, I received a sample of angora from a friend the other day, so I spent some time today playing with it and working up a little sample.

I’d never spun angora before, so it took a little bit of practicing before I got a feel for how it drafted. It’s so soft and fine- but with a decent staple length, so I decided to spin it on it’s own, with no wool blended in.

My regular old hand carders did a decent job prepping it- not perfect, but got most of the clumps opened up

Thought I had a picture of it on the bobbin, but oh, well-
Here is the resulting swatch

Serious halo- and I haven’t even washed it yet!
It could probably have used a bit more twist in the singles, so I’ll probably try that next time so the yarn is a little stronger and more stable. But I’m pretty pleased with how the first try went.

Makes me really want to make one of these
or perhaps one of these

The little ones look like they’d work up pretty fast….