Carolyn Needle Felts Lilianna

Most are quite familiar with this photo of me and this big white doe.  Her name is Chu's Lilianna, this photo was taken in July 2011 at Watsonville.   Lilianna won Best In Show that day, the photo was posted on blog for the first time: Northern California Angora Guild: Lilianna Wins All Breed Best In Show in Show A (ncag.blogspot.com)

Lilianna won Best In Show 17 times in 2011, this photo was used quite a few times.  Nothing happened for almost 3 years then in February 2014, Huffington Post picked it up and this photo went viral.   The entire year of 2014 was "crazy" as news media requests flooded in, this photo plus others were reported all over the world.  The peak happened in August 2014 when Guinness invitation came in requesting an attempt for a world record.   By then Lilianna had long retired from shows thus no longer wearing her beautiful show coat.   Franchesca was in her prime and received the world record of 14.37 inches of length, became the "Longest Fur on a Rabbit".  The record still stands today.

This is one of the photos being used in a lot of news reports and websites.  

Here is another photo of Lilianna that was used in a quite a few of websites all over the world. 

Is this also Lilianna?  Yes and No.  It is not really an English Angora though it looks so much like one.  It is a needle felted English Angora using Lilianna's wool.  

The artist is Carolyn Sawai.  Carolyn has not met Lilianna as Lilianna retired from showing in 2012.  Using Lilianna's wool is a good way of getting close to Lilianna.

It takes a lot of time and effort to make this needle felted Lilianna, Carolyn uses a glass display case to protect it from dusts and elements.