Black English Angora and Black Yarn

Yesterday these black English Angora handspun yarns were featured.

Here is a close up of the these art yarns.   If you wonder whether the saved black wool was smooth enough to spin lace weight yarns, yes, the wool was prime wool.  I could have spin fine but my taste is closer to art yarns for hat making.  

Isn't Betty known for having torts and REWs?  Where did these black English Angora wool come from?  The black wool has be in my storage for quite a while.  Since I have made the decision of focusing on torts and REW, I thought I'd never have black wool again so I treausred them.   Recently I thought it's not making any sense to store bags and bags of the pretty wool but not use them so I sat down and spun them all. 

 I have had black as well as most colors in my English Angora herd for at least 25 years before I made the decision to streamline to torts and REW.  This photo was taken in 2004.  Her name is Chu's LaNelle, the BOV colored at the 2004 ARBA convention at Providence, RI.    This photo is quite often-used in various places including but not limited to the WCC catalog from the early years to the current.   This photo also attracted attention from a game show called "I've Got a Secret" in 2006 and as a result I was invited to be a contestant at that show.  See: English Angora On TV   The video of the entire segment is at the end of the post.  However, the video does not show up if you are using a mobile device.  You need a regular computer to watch the program.

  This is Chu's Malania.  She was the BOV colored at the 2005 Angora National.   Malania was the "Model" of the Dust Bunny Araminta for the Ghost Hunter book series Silver Master.  See:
English Angora as Dust Bunnies: 2008  

 

This is Chu's Tamyra.  She has one of the darkest black among the English Angora blacks.


These three are just samples of my previous black English Angoras.   I have had many more than these three.  From the photos, you can see the different shades of black.  All wool animals tend to have different shades of color even with the same color genetics due to modifiers.  Also the longer the wool, the less the color near the skin of the rabbit.    As a result the yarns spun from their wool are not a consistent black or gray.  The yarns tend to look varigated even though the wool could be from the same rabbit.

Do I miss the black English Angoras?  Yes and no.  They are very pretty.  However, I found it harder to keep as their texture tends to be softer than the torts and REW that I specialized in.  Due to the lighter color under the tips, any little chewing shows up like a light bulb, thus harder to maintain a finish look.    Though I do a good amount of fiber work,  I consider myself mainly a show person.   I find it's more efficient to focus on the type, density, texture and non-molting easy care characteristics than having many different colors in my herd.