Anyway, on to a topic that people raising angoras don't normally discuss in public. Mats. We just don't want to confess that we sometimes get them in our rabbits, and we want to believe that other breeders don't have this problem, either.
We started raising French angoras because we don't want to deal with mats. And we still prefer to avoid them when at all possible. The senior rabbits the girls have here all grow relatively carefree coats. They really only need two minutes of grooming per week until they are close to shedding their coat. But junior rabbits usually are an entirely different matter. Sometimes they have coats that mat way too quickly, even with grooming several times per week. Usually it is just the nature of the baby fiber, but it can also happen when they take a fancy to rubbing against their water bottles or playing in water crocks, or rubbing against each other if they are sharing a cage.
It used to be so annoying because I viewed it as a complete waste of beautiful fiber.
But now I've come to see it as not a complete waste. I become a lot less stressed when the girls miss grooming an area on the rabbit and find some mats. It's good to chill out.
Anyway, the mats are spun into the yarn and provide an interesting texture. It gets called novelty yarn, and I've been told that novelty yarn actually sells better and commands a higher price than evenly spun yarn. I can't comment because I can't compare. I've only sold two mini-skeins of yarn, and those were both novelty yarn. I've got a couple of skeins to put in our Etsy shop, one white novelty yarn skein and one chocolate lace-weight yarn skein. We'll see which one sells first.
I think it makes beautiful mittens.
No comments:
Post a Comment