Spinning Lucky Lady

Tracy reports that her retired Grand Champion Rios Lucky Lady, a white French Angora doe, has gone live with spinner Carolyn in Truckee.

Carolyn recently reports her delight with lucky Lady's companionship and wool. She first carded Lucky Lady's wool with marino then ventured into spinning 100% Angora.

Carolyn reports: "The first yarn I tried was Lucky carded with a wonderfully soft and fine merino wool fleece I bought. I made a yummy scarf for me with this. This month was my first time spinning 100% Lucky. Seeing a demo at my spinning meeting helped. The lady just spun directly from the box without carding. So I tried it. I'm not as good as her, my yarn is a little lumpy, but that is OK with me - I feel accomplished having succeeded! I have 2 small skeins so far. Lucky's hair is long again, so I am slowly harvesting at the moment, so I will have another box to spin in a month or so. Here is Lucky today. After I have clipped her hair she looks so un-photogenic, so I took this picture to remember how beautiful she is."Here is my yarn. The 2 on the left are 100% Lucky. The one on the right is about 20% Lucky and 80% merino. "

Another happy story for a rabbit, a breeder and a spinner.

A Productive Group

Angora people are a productive group. It is not unusual to see the Angora breeders working on their craft after grooming is done. In the Lodi show a week ago, a few pictures were taken showing such activities.

At the top, Franco is showing off the Giant Angora x Alpaca scarf that he made from scratch: harvesting the wool, spinning into yarn and knitting into the scarf. He did a great job.

In the next two photos, Carol is spinning, Tracy is knitting, Lindsay is grooming and there is Lynn, a French Lop breeder, winding her Angora yarn she'd just purchased into a ball.

Sometimes we hear other breeders whining about being bored when waiting for the rabbits to be called to the show table or waiting for the Best In Show judging. Well, Angora breeders are never bored, there are too many things we do in shows and there is just too much fun.

French Angora Winners At Lodi

These are the belated photos of the French Angora Best of Breed winners at the Lodi show over a week ago. Just received the top photo from Carol W., this is her show B BOB French Angora that received an honorable mention from judge Armando during the Best In Show judging.

The second photo shows Carol spinning on her electric wheel with Lindsay in the background.

In the third photo, Lindsay is preparing her BOB French Angora in show A for Best In Show judging.

Visit From Charlie

Charlie, the current president of Northern California Angora Guild, has been absent from the show scene for quite a while. He has not had any live bunnies for over a year. In addition, he and his partner David are building their dream house on their country property. The combination of the two make showing next to impossible.

On Saturday at Yuba City, Charlie came to visit around noon. No rabbits, of course. After being asked over and over by other show people during his absence, we decided it would be better for him to say hello to everyone before sitting down with the Angora people. He spent more than two hours saying hello all around the show room. Finally he came back and sat with us. In the second photo, from left to right are Tracy, Charlie, Betty, Casey and Lindsay. Cathy and Kim happened to have other rabbits on the table; they are not in the picture.

Charlie stayed all the way to the end of the show. At the top, he is waiting for the Best In Show judging with Lindsay, Betty and Casey.

He said he had a good time and would be back visiting more often. We hope he will have live bunnies soon and be back in shows in 2007.

Christina G's First Open Shows

Our American Fuzzy Lop friend Christina G. completed her youth showing at the ARBA convention in Fort Worth with a Best Of Variety win. She started her first open showing at the Stockton show on Nov. 18 with total success. Her two AFL won Best of Breed in show A and show B.

Two weeks later she returned to the open show at Yuba City and won the BOB and BOS again. The top photo is Christina G. with her BOB white American Fuzzy Lop; mom Tausha is holding the BOS winner.

In the second photo, Christina is happily holding with her two winners at Stockton. The third photo is her BOB in show A at Stockton and the fourth photo is her BOB in show B at Stockton.

Congratulations, Christina. Many years of success to come.

Open Show at Yuba City

The open show was sponsored by the Northern California RBA. This club has been in existence for a long time. Betty won her first all breed Best In Show in this club's Christmas show in 1985.

Sadly this may be the last show of this club. Those who are involved are getting older and there aren't enough younger members step in to help the set up and tear down. There won't be a show in 2007, but there is a slim chance that the show would be back in 2008.

Our judge for the all breed show was Cathy S., member of the ARBA Standard Committe, president the national Rex club and a top top Rex breeder. He choice of the winners were the about the same as judge Leslie's in the NCAG specialty show.

In the top photo, Casey's Molina took BOB English Angora, Chu's Fawntana took BOS English Angora. Lindsay won BOB and BOS French Angora, shown in photo two with Cathy S. Tracy again won BOB Satin Angora with Rios Mean Girl; Tracy also won BOS Satin Angora with a young buck that is not shown in the picture.

NCAG Specialty Show

Northern California Angora Guild has successfully completed a specialty show at Yuba City on Saturday. The turn out was good, there were three breeds of Angora represented in the show. Our judge was Leslie who kindly took in our rabbits after we had been waiting for another judge for a while.

In the top photo, Judge Leslie is among the three Best of Breed winners. From left to right, Casey won English Angora BOB with Molina, Lindsay won BOB French Angora with her white doe and on the right Tracy won BOB Satin Angora with her "Mean Girl".

Molina won the specialty Best In Show.

Lindsay and Tracy also won Best Opposite sex in their breeds; in the second photo, Judge Leslie is seen with Betty and Casey. Betty is holding the English Angora Best Opposite Sex Chu's Fawntana and Casey with Casey's Molina. Fawntana and Molina took all breed Best In Show in Lodi the previous week in show A and B respectively.