Angora Rabbit Tracks Spinning and Knitting

Finally - I have spun enough yarn, and plied enough together, to try knitting something. Here's my sample, using "rabbit tracks" lace pattern. I've never done any lace knitting before so am very proud of myself for figuring out how to do this. I tried the bottom half of my sample with the recommended needle size - 5.5mm, and then went up to 7.5mm for the top half of the sample. I'm liking the openness of the top half, though I'm biased towards that because bigger needles mean it will knit up faster and I'll use up less wool!

I've already unravelled this sample and started knitting what will become a thermal singlet to wear under my clothes in winter. Wish me luck!

Comments

[Mel]

Yay for you!! You inspired me so much,that when I found a spinning wheel at the opshop, I grabbed it. I then went and got myself a couple of Angora Rabbits! I have a red eyed white and a smokey one. Just in the basic grooming of them, I am collecting a nice amount of wool!

Now I have to go along to our local spinners group and have someone show me how to thread up my new contraption!

Fixie: Hey Mel I can't believe you up and got yourself Angora Rabbits! Maybe we are starting a new sustainability trend, haha. Good on you. I just went over to your blog and saw the photo - they are gorgeous. And I'm kind of relieved to see you are finding them a lot of work too. Yeah, it's not the grooming. We have ours in the house a lot of the day and there seems to be constant cleaning up etc. And boy, does she eat! Armloads of greens that have to be perfectly fresh, ie, merely hours old, or she turns up her nose at them. We feed her four times a day. What are you feeding yours?

[Mel]

Hey Fixie

Thankfully mine aren't that fussy! I give them nasturtiums and weeds from the garden, as well as some Asian Greens, carrots, hay, grains/rabbit feed (though I'm in two minds about that)broccoli and cauliflower. I only feed them twice a day - morning they get the stuff from outside and in the evening I give them their veggies. I also give them some fruit, but I don't give them a lot of that, because I worry about it increasing the sugar levels in their blood and then attracting mozzies (good idea to avoid anything with molasses in it too)

But yes, the work load with them is a bit overwhelming - they've probably added an extra 45 mins work to my already busy day!! But that is mainly because I keep them caged when they are in the house, so every morning I have to clean it all out and hose everything down and then restock again for the following night. The cage outside, I don't have to worry about so much, as it is all wire and sits on grass - so I just have to move that around and that is all good.

Looking forward to seeing how you go with it all - I suspect you'll be moving MUCH faster with it all than I!!

Fixie: What kind of cages do you have, both inside and out? Can you send me photos? I think the kind of cage makes a HUGE difference to the amount of work involved. Our cage had a wire floor on half, and a wood floor on the other half. Naturally she'd always wee on the wood floor half, and I spent time each day cleaning it out. Yesterday we cut out the wood floor and replaced it with wire. My cleaning routine was HEAPS faster today! I'm interested in trying an outdoor cage mounted over grass. It sounds good. I'd love details about what you are doing with that. BTW on the net I read that they aren't supposed to eat grains. My rabbit food mix has grains in it, and as well as noticing that she leaves them for last, and only eats them if she's really desperate, I've noticed the grains fall amongst her poo, then when I put them on the garden they germinate - very annoying. So I'm changing over to just giving her pellets. I've been drying grass for her to eat so I don't have to buy hay. We've noticed when we give her fruit she gets diarrhoea - we don't really give her any now. Do yours get diarrhoea from fruit?

[Joyce Hargrove]

How much fun are you two having!?!? I wanna rabbit like yours. Well, maybe not til I don't have so many other pets. sounds like lots of work. Can't wait to see the finished project. The sample is beautiful. Bet it broke your heart to take it apart!

Fixie: Well I must say, it's very exciting and I'm enjoying the whole project. You are right - it is a lot of work. Mel, another reader, got herself Angora rabbits after reading my blog - she finds hers add 45 mins into her day. I'm finding about the same. Funny, if I'd knitted the sample from shop wool, it would have broken my heart to pull it apart! But because I SPUN IT MYSELF - well it took soooooo much more time to spin than knit, that the wool itself seemed SO valuable, that taking it apart felt really essential, so I didn't have to spin that wool again! :)

By the way are you going to set up the humanure system? I LOVE ours - it's great, easy, doesn't take much time to manage....